First of three posts including possible passages for upcoming reading

In six days, on Release Day (August 15) for my historical novel The Decision, I'll be doing a reading and signing event at our wonderful local bookstore Morgenstern's. I haven't yet chosen what passage to read . . . and that's where I hope you, my Facebook readers, will weigh in. I'm going to post three passages -- in separate posts, so please check for the others -- and ask you to tell me, in the comments, what you think people attending the event would find most interesting and intriguing.

Here's the first. It takes place in Berlin during autumn 1919 (about a year after World War I ended). "Vati" is the German equivalent of "Dad" or "Daddy."

(The formatting here includes that space between paragraphs as well as the indents, and I'm not going to take the trouble to find out how to change it. Forgive me.)

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Every once in a while, Vati took to grumbling about the Jews again — that they had betrayed Germany, that no true German should trust them, that they were sneaky and sly, that they ran shops and cheated their customers. But how could Hansi recognize a Jew, so he would know to be careful? No one had explained that.

So he asked Vati.

Vati smiled and said, “That’s good, Hansi, that you want to know. There might even be Jewish students at your school, and you need to know that.” He stopped and stroked his chin. Hansi had the feeling Vati would have liked to puff on his pipe, if he could still afford to smoke. “There are a few ways to spot a Jew. To start with, there’s how they look. They have big, hooked noses — a little like the number 6, except backwards.” Vati showed Hansi with his finger how long and hooked a Jew’s nose would be. “And they have dark, beady eyes — with their eyelids half closed, to make it harder for you to look them in the eye or read their expressions.”

Hansi nodded, hoping he could remember all these details.

“Their skin is darker, like the Italians. Usually they have black, curly hair, greasy, or else all curled up tight, almost like the Africans you’ve seen in pictures. But sometimes they have red hair. It might mean that someone in their family, generations ago, betrayed his race and married a Jew. Or it might be something they do to try to disguise what they are.

“I should have told you all this before, my son. Now you are armed with information, and can spot these enemies before they can weaken you or do you harm.”

 

At school the next day, Hansi studied his fellow students. None of them had red hair. Some had darker hair and some lighter. None of them had a big hooked nose, but Samuel’s nose stuck out more than some, and he had curly hair that was darker than Hansi’s. Hansi waited until school was dismissed for the day and went up to Samuel before Samuel could run home to some Jewish hideaway. He marched right up to him and asked, “Are you a Jew?”

Samuel stared at him as if puzzled. “Ja. So?”

Now what? Hansi couldn’t kick him out of the school. He settled on, “I just wanted to know, so I can . . . can keep an eye on you. In case you start any Jew trouble.”

Samuel grabbed Hansi’s arm and pulled him aside from the stream of students leaving the school. “That’s enough, you Ignorantin! I’ll fight you here and now!” He put up his fists.

Hansi looked at his own hands and back at Samuel’s. “You’d fight me? But Jews are cowards!”

Samuel spat at Hansi. Some of the spit touched Hansi’s hands, and he wiped them on his pants as hard as he could. Meanwhile, Samuel was shouting, “My father is a war hero! He won a medal! You should be such a coward!”

A medal? Not even Vati had won a medal — or had he, and just not wanted to brag about it? Meanwhile, the two of them were attracting attention. So far it was only other boys, but a teacher or even the headmaster could show up any minute. Samuel looked around as if he were thinking the same thing, Jew or no. He turned back to Hansi, shook one fist at him and said, “We can finish this around the corner, if you’re not a coward.” He pointed in the direction of the nearest intersection.

Hansi squared his shoulders and said, “Sure.” He tried to think as Samuel stalked off toward the corner. Vati would want him to fight, and be proud of him for doing it. Mutti, though, might cry or scold or both, even if she hated Jews as much as Vati did. Did she? Hansi didn’t even know.

He trudged to the corner, wondering if he had any way out of a fight he didn’t much want. It was a hot day, especially for October — that must be why he was sweating.

 

Samuel was waiting. He didn’t look scared, which would have helped . . . but he didn’t look as mad as he had before. As Hansi walked up, Samuel said, “I’m ready to fight if you are. But if you don’t want to, I won’t make you.”

Hansi didn’t want to. He should want to, but he didn’t. It wasn’t just that he’d probably get hurt, and that Mutti would fuss. Samuel seemed like a good enough fellow. And there must be something wrong with how he’d understood Vati . . . or even, little as he wanted to think it, with how Vati understood Jews, because Samuel didn’t look that much like what Vati had said he should, and he didn’t seem sneaky. And if he was a coward, what did that make Hansi?

Vati would want him to fight. But if he didn’t tell Vati about the Jew at school, Hansi wouldn’t have to disappoint him or get in trouble about it. Hansi shifted his weight and said, “I won’t make you, either.”

Samuel stuck out his hand and said, “Shake on it?”

It would be rude to say no. Touching a Jew couldn’t be that much worse than talking to one and deciding not to fight him. Hansi shook hands, and then turned and ran home through the heat.

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So that's the first of three possibilities!

Attention, Music Teachers

In preparing for the release of my picture book biography A Boy Who Made Music: The Extraordinary Life of Joaquin Rodrigo, it hadn't initially occurred to me to make an attempt at getting the attention of music teachers. But a couple of people who responded enthusiastically to my posts about the book have flagged music teachers, or groups of music teachers, they knew -- and it does sound like a good idea.

So hey, music teachers: please take a look! Here's the description.

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Joaquin Rodrigo was a brilliant Spanish composer, writing music for piano, violin, chorus, and guitar. He was also, from the age of three, almost completely blind.

This picture book follows Joaquin from carefree early childhood through his life-altering illness, his discovery of classical music, and his successful career and family life. Joaquin's story can inspire children to dream beyond the apparent limitations suggested by circumstance.

The book's back matter includes multiple activities and enrichment materials.

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The paperback and hardcover editions are available on Amazon and bookshop.org, as well as in a host of other retailers' websites (and probably a few bricks-and-mortar bookstores) (and a few libraries as well).

Oh, and here's the cover!

Release Day! -- and no more spelling issues

Wish me a happy Release Day! (Also, if you're so inclined, you can wish me happy birthday. I'm older than most of you and younger than many of you.) A Boy Who Made Music: The Extraordinary Life of Joaquin Rodrigo is now available far and wide (and near, for that matter) in paperback and hardcover editions, with the braille edition pending. If you use Amazon, it's here; if you prefer other retailers, you could, e.g., go to bookshop.org for it.

This is my first nonfiction picture book, and it posed various challenges (even before the confrontation with the pesky spelling of "diphtheria," now resolved). I'm pleased with how it came out, and owe manifold thanks to illustrator Tomasz Mikutel, watercolor artist and immensely patient human being.

Here's the art for the final double-page spread in the book, before the information and activities in the back matter.

What does this image represent or symbolize? Find the book and find out!

"More Haste Less Speed," or The Disadvantages of Hurrying

I have frequently had occasion to remind myself of a maxim uttered by Gollum, the often despicable but always pitiable character who played a crucial role in J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was a kind of hobbit, though he retained little obvious resemblance to hobbit-kind, and this maxim showed the pithy common sense one could expect from hobbits.

"More haste less speed."

I don't know how many times I've been hurrying through some task, driven by anxiety and/or an imminent deadline, and only belatedly remembered Gollum's bit of wisdom. And I can't even guess at how many times I'd have benefited from remembering it. An instance of the latter involved the hardcover edition of A Boy Who Made Music. The book contained a misspelling of "diphtheria," which I made haste to fix once I was informed of it. And in my haste, I failed to look through the replacement file in detail.

Through some bizarre, inexplicable foul-up, that file included most of the book twice. The same error occurred when I fixed the paperback file, but I caught it there. And my memory of catching it kept me from realizing that I'd missed it, first, with the hardcover file. But if I'd been careful and methodical, instead of scrambling in a panic because the release date was (then) only a week and a half away, I'd have made and uploaded a correct hardcover file as well.

So all you anxiety-ridden or impatient people out there, heed my warning and learn from my mistake. 

I'm now waiting for the doubled-up version to get through the proofing process so I can nix it and upload a corrected corrected file. Sigh.

Meanwhile, here's the spread introducing the consequences of Joaquin's illness. 

And lest you think the book is relentlessly downbeat, here's a fanciful depiction of how much he loved listening to music.

Tomorrow, I'll post the gorgeous final illustration in celebration of Release Day -- though I think I'll keep the text as a surprise/reward for those who actually hunt down or buy the book. In the meantime, the paperback is already available for purchase, one day early (go figure!) -- as is the hardcover, if you want that shall-we-say-simplified spelling of diphtheria.

 Progress! The paperback edition of A Boy Who Made Music now spells "diphtheria" correctly, so if you prefer the more cumbersome correct spelling, you can preorder the paperback here or here or here or . . . from various other retailers. Please ignore the adjacent hardcover listings for another day or so, unless you prefer either (a) the easier-to-read spelling ("diptheria") or (b) a possible future collector's item. 

While I'm posting, I'll share another double-page spread from the book, one of my favorites. In fact, it was largely this sample illustration from watercolor artist Tomasz Mikutel that led me to collaborate with him on this project. The spread illustrates the fact that when Joaquin recovered from his illness, he could no longer see colors (or anything but some degree of light versus dark).

I plan to post on or before the August 4th release date with at least one more spread for you to peek at, and again, if necessary, when the hardcover edition finally gets its spelling straight. 

Meanwhile, August is Romance Awareness Month, so if you enjoy historical romance set in the USA in the late 19th century -- or think you might -- you could take a look at my Cowbird Creek series.

 

Back matter for nonfiction picture books: an example

 A Boy Who Made Music is my first nonfiction picture book. Nonfiction picture books typically have back matter, providing more information for those sufficiently interested in the subject. This book provided my first opportunity to give informative back matter a try. (Well, almost my first. I added a note at the end of Where Fireflies Sleep to clarify a point I'd arguably fudged.)

I didn't want to switch from fully illustrated two-page spreads to stark text-only pages, so my obliging illustrator Tomasz Mikutel provided a host of "spot illustrations" for me to sprinkle through the back matter as I saw fit. The page I'm including below (the first of three) shows how I made use of those illustrations.

Did I make the right decisions about what to italicize? I don't know and at this point, I have no intention of worrying about it. (Unfortunately, worrying doesn't always require an intention. But I'll try to avoid it.)

Meanwhile, I continue to wait for that spelling correction to go through. Care to cross your fingers along with me?

Arrrghhh, spelling: the drama of last-minute corrections

 I've been getting ready for next Sunday's release of my first nonfiction picture book, A Boy Who Made Music: The Extraordinary Life of Joaquin Rodrigo. (I'm not including the link, because for logistical reasons I'll get into shortly, I'd rather you buy the book, if so inclined, after the current situation gets untangled.) The story is inherently dramatic: Rodrigo went almost entirely blind at the age of three, learned to love music, and became an internationally famous composer. (You may have heard his wonderful and most popular composition, "Concierto de Aranjez." Here's one of innumerable performances.)

It's a challenging story to tell in picture book form: how do you illustrate a story that essentially begins with blindness? Watercolor artist Tomasz Mikutel and I took a symbolic approach, changing from color illustrations to black and white at the moment Rodrigo and the reader discovers the consequences of his illness.

It seemed to me that public libraries were likely to be interested in Rodrigo's story, and in this picture book treatment of it in particular. So I found a list of all the public libraries in Indiana (figuring that being an Indiana author wouldn't hurt), and started contacting them. I heard back from some librarians, and one or two asked to see an ARC (advance review copy or advance reader copy, depending which basis for the acronym one prefers) before they made up their minds.

And then, one librarian who had formerly been a copy editor emailed me with many appreciative comments on the book (calling it "a great story, well written, with attractive illustrations and valuable back matter​"), asked me whether the hardcover edition would have the title on the spine (yes) . . . and pointing out that I'd misspelled "diphtheria." Somehow, I'd never noticed that (IMHO) annoying and unnecessary first "h."

I got this email on July 25th. Next Sunday, the release date, is August 4th.

Yikes.

I'm the one who put the text on Tomasz's illustrations, so I had the multilayer files and could do some chopping and rearranging and copying and pasting to add that pesky "h." Then I had to do the formatting for the various editions (Kindle, paperback, hardcover) for the various editions. (Whoops -- that reminds me I need to notify the folks handling the braille edition!) Next came the easy part: uploading the corrected files to Amazon's KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) arm. That's all taken care of.

The last phase: uploading the new files to IngramSpark, which prints paperbacks and hardcovers and distributes them to a host of retailers, online and bricks-and-mortar. Their process is a good deal more cumbersome than KDP's. Adding to that complexity is some otherwise positive news: I've had some preorders, and IngramSpark prints those before even looking at submitted revisions.

So I'm waiting and hoping. Waiting for an email saying that IngramSpark has processed the new files and has an electronic proof for me to approve; hoping it happens before August 4th, and that this snafu won't lead to a period when one or more retailers shows the book as unavailable. And while I'm waiting, I'm going to share one of the two corrected spreads in the book, just in case it takes longer than planned for it to hit (virtual and other) shelves.

I'll be back soon with more about the book!

Wearing Both My Lawyer and Author Hats to Examine Justice Sotomayor's Hypothetical

 These days, I blog mostly about books and publishing. But I'm still a lawyer, though quasi-retired, and I have an abiding interest in constitutional law. Combine that interest with an author's habit of asking "what if" -- especially an author, sometimes, of science fiction -- and you get this attempt to examine Justice Sotomayor's dissent in the recent decision on presidential immunity.

Justice Sotomayor opined that under the majority decision, a president could order Seal Time 6 to assassinate a political rival and be forever immune from prosecution for so doing. Various legal commentators have dismissed this assertion with words like "preposterous." It would certainly be more comfortable to do so. But I believe her hypothetical deserves more serious examination.

First, a brief recap of a few key points in the majority opinion. According to the Justices in the majority, the basic structure of the constitution assumes an energetic president, unrestrained by fears of what his political opponents may do the moment he leaves office. Accordingly, when he exercises his "core constitutional powers" -- that is, "within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority" -- he is absolutely immune from later prosecution for doing so. And when he acts "within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility, he has "at least presumptive immunity." The former category apparently includes authority that is typically delegated to various people within the president's administration, or else the majority would not have stated several times that authority exclusive to "the Executive Branch" is covered by this absolute immunity.

The basis for the hypothetical is the president's status as Commander in Chief. The president can give orders to military personnel. Arguably, this is authority accorded exclusively to the president, or at least those within the Executive Branch -- if the various military personnel who give orders to those lower in the chain of command may be so defined. If, by giving orders to members of the military, the president is acting "within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority," then he would (gulp) have not merely presumptive, but absolute immunity for those orders,  no matter their motivation. If this analysis is correct, even issuing a presidential order that is "illegal" under military law could not be criminally prosecuted.

If this hypothetical order somehow does not fall within the "exclusive" presidential sphere, but is instead an official act "within the outer perimeter" of presidential responsibilities, then it may be possible to rebut the presumption of immunity -- though the Court didn't actually rule that immunity in this context is only presumptive, saying rather that it didn't need to decide that question given the state of the record. If, in fact, official acts of this kind are only presumptively immune, how may that presumption be rebutted? The majority indicates that the  prosecution may attempt to prove that the conduct in question "does not pose dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch" (internal quotations  omitted). 

What about motive? Where would a president's reason for arranging a military assassination fit in? It may not, the Court held, be used to distinguish "official" from "unofficial" conduct. "Such an inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose, thereby intruding on the Article II interests that immunity seeks to protect." However, it may be inferred that once conduct is conceded to be official, motive may be called upon to rebut the presumption of immunity, if in fact later rulings confirm that such rebuttal is allowed.

So where does all this analysis leave Justice Sotomayor's hypothetical? It seems to me that should a president indulge in political assassination by means of the military, any future prosecutor would need to argue first -- and I don't, at first glance, quite see how -- that giving orders to military personnel to kill someone is not within his core constitutional powers. If the prosecutor prevails on that point, and if no future Supreme Court opinion  has eliminated the possibility of rebutting the presumption of immunity for official acts outside that category, then we may all relax, trusting that the motive will constitute a sufficient rebuttal. But at this early stage of absorbing the decision, as we wait to see how it is applied in the future, we can hardly fault the Justice for treating the outcome as something less than guaranteed.

Resurrected Website, Upcoming Books

Hello, all! It's been too long since I wrote, as tends to happen. In fact, I have been writing -- just not blogging. To be specific, I wrote another novel, my first foray into non-romance historical fiction. It's also my first tentative movement toward telling any of the amazing stories about my family and how its members survived long enough for me to exist.

I've always been intimidated by the thought of trying to do justice to these stories, and by the related presumptuous task of putting words in the mouths/thoughts in the head of people I know and love (including some I love from across the unfathomable gap between the living and the dead). This story,  however, while possibly crucial to my father's family's survival, springs from an incident in the autumn of 1938 that took no more than ten minutes from start to finish. The central character: a Berlin policeman about whom my father and brothers learned only three salient and contradictory facts:

-- He wore, under his jacket and uniform, the brown shirt of a Nazi storm trooper.

-- He witnessed a bicycle accident that one of my uncles caused, heard my father's confession that he and his brothers were involved, and further heard my father admit that they were Jewish.

-- Rather than detaining them, he quietly but insistently commanded them to "DISAPPEAR."

Why did he make that decision? How could it possibly spring from the life story that led him to don that brown shirt?

For that matter, what was his name?

I wrote a novel trying to solve this puzzle. And I gave the policeman the name "Hans." The novel is, aptly enough, called The Decision, and the Kindle edition is now available for preorder. 

I've also collaborated with watercolor artist Tomasz Mikutel, who illustrated my previous picture book Wind, Ocean, Grass, to tackle my first nonfiction picture book, a biography of the great Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. This book, A Boy Who Made Music, is available for preorder in paperback and will soon be available (again, for preorder) in hardcover. I'm moderately optimistic about putting out a Braille edition as well -- which is very much appropriate because Rodrigo went almost entirely blind at the age of three. (In a future post, I'll talk about how the conventional picture book deals with that transition.)

But wait -- didn't I tease a resurrected website? Well, yes. I don't remember just how it happened, but I stopped by my website several weeks ago and discovered, to my horror, that the newsletter signup link didn't work. Or rather, it worked to send visitors to the wrong place, a page for book excerpts and other extras. Which may explain why nobody has signed up for my newsletter recently.

The obvious fix didn't work for some mysterious reason, so I rebuilt the link. While I was poking around, I checked my master list of book reviews and saw that it was woefully out of date -- so I redid that page and either updated or added all the particular books' review pages as well. PHEW. I also cleaned up the home page a bit and added the two upcoming books to it. So to reward me for all that work, how about dropping by and (to quote a certain blog name) looking around?

Some Ways Not to Lose Story Ideas

Whether an author is first coming up with a story concept, musing over how to approach that concept, planning a future draft, actually writing a draft, or revising a draft, the author never knows when an idea worth preserving will pop up. And many of us can't count on remembering that idea for very long, or even once we walk into the next room. (There's actually something called the "doorway effect" whereby short-term memory tends to evaporate once one passes through some sort of boundary.) So how can one avoid losing ideas about character traits, plot directions, new scenes, or "just right" endings? It's easy to say "write them down," but what if you're in bed, or the car, or in the shower?

Well, you need to have a way to write notes to yourself in those places. Yes, even in the shower. There's actually a product out there that could have been tailor-made for authors: Aqua Notes. I plug it whenever this topic comes up (and no one ever pays me for doing it). It's a pad with suckers on the back for sticking to shower walls, with waterproof pages and a special pencil for writing on them. I also keep a notepad with attached light on my nightstand -- though my handwriting at 3 a.m. is not always decipherable when I get up in the morning.

It's trickier to keep ideas from escaping if they show up while I'm driving. What I generally do is mutter to myself, repeating the idea, until I can pull over and get hold of my phone. Then I send myself a quick email. (One of these days, I'll figure out how to just talk at my phone, or at my newly leased full-of-bells-and-whistles car, and send myself an email while driving.)

What are your handy ways to keep ideas from getting away? Let me know in the comments!

All My Science Fiction, for National Science Fiction Day

 Happy New Year, all, and Happy National Science Fiction Day! 

In honor of the latter, here's a list of all my science fiction novels to date. As you can see, they're a varied lot. I've included links to the Kindle editions, but they're all available in paperback from many (mostly but not entirely online) retailers.

--The Twin-Bred series (Twin-Bred, Reach, and Leaders): This series begins on a planet colonized by us Earthers about seventy years before. Communication with the indigenous intelligent species has been difficult, and bewildering conflicts keep arising, with the potential to escalate into war. Dr. Mara Cadell, a scientist with a very personal secret, has a novel proposal for how to bridge this gap between species. For more details, see the link to Twin-Bred, above. All I can say about the latter two books without spoilers is that they continue the story of the Twin-Bred. To quote one of my favorite plays, Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons: "I trust I make myself obscure."

Water to Water: I think of this book as science fiction, but it could be read as fantasy. It takes place on a planet which has had no contact with humans, or vice-versa. It has sufficient intelligent species without them. It has certain aspects of a YA novel, including young protagonists, a quest, and coming-of-age themes. Here's a description: "Two young Vushla questioned what everyone knew about death. What should they do with the answer? When the time comes for Vushla to die, they go into the ocean and are dissolved away. Or so Terrill has always believed, and still believes after taking part in his father's final journey. But when he meets a young Vushlu who lives by the sea, Terrill must confront information that calls this fundamental belief into question. Will the two of them discover the truth? And what should they do with what they find?"

The remaining four SF novels are all set on this planet in the near future. All of them also have extensive courtroom scenes, informed by my other head's career, practicing law. I'll list them in the order of publication.

Division: This story's tag line sums up the central conflict nicely (if I say so myself): "New technology, new choices . . . but who gets to choose?" To be more specific:
     "Conjoined twins Gordon and Johnny have never let their condition keep them from living full and fulfilling lives. Gordon looks forward to many years of closeness and cooperation. Johnny, however, faces their future with increasing restlessness, even dread.
     "When the boys are in their teens, the new technologies of accelerated human cloning and brain transplants are combined into a single medical procedure. Someone whose body has suffered such extensive damage as to make normal life impossible may -- with court approval -- be cloned and then given a brain transplant into the clone body. With Gordon's unwitting assistance, Johnny realizes that this procedure provides the chance he had never dared to hope for -- the chance to live in a 'normal,' separate body.
     "But Gordon considers their conjoined life a blessing, rather than a curse. He has no intention of accepting separation -- not without a fight . . . ."

Playback Effect: This book gave me the weirdly invigorating opportunity to have breakfast with a sociopath. Here's the description: "In the near future, new technology records the highlights of emotional experience for others to share. Buy a helmet and you can feel the exhilaration of an Olympic ski jumper, or the heat of a lucid dreamer's erotic imaginings. Commit a crime, and you may be sentenced to endure the suffering you inflicted on others. But such recordings may carry more information than the public has realized. What will criminals learn about their victims? When a husband is wrongfully convicted of injuring his wife, how will their marriage change? And what uses will a sociopath find for recordings of the experience of death?"

Who: Here's another favorite timeline: "Have they changed their minds? Or have their minds been changed?" The context is digitally stored personality and memories, and the details: "Death is no longer the end. Those who prepare, and can afford it, may have their memories and personalities digitally preserved. The digitally stored population can interact with the world of the living, remaining part of their loved ones’ lives. They can even vote. Except - someone's in charge of the code. Someone who may have an agenda. After the young and vital Thea dies and is stored, her husband Max starts to wonder about changes in her preoccupations and politics. Are they simply the result of the new company she keeps? Or has she been altered without her knowledge and against her will? And if Thea is no longer herself, what can they do?"

Lastly, Donation: This book took the longest to write, if "write" includes writing, revising, running by beta readers, revising again, deciding not to publish it, leaving it to lie fallow for months, revising it again, and sending it out into the world. It is in some senses timely, not to mention possibly controversial and/or dystopian in parts. It concerns the possible consequences of (a) a ban on abortion, made politically feasible by (b) the development of artificial wombs, and the related technology for allowing women to "donate" embryos and fetuses, with (c) the entire setup controlled by centralized government. One of those consequences: mission creep. To know what I mean by that, you can click through to the description -- or read the book!

Happy reading, all, and may science fiction continue to lead us into (with apologies to Star Trek) strange new worlds, and unexpected ways of viewing our own.

Atrocity, Barbarism, and Israel's Response

 This post will not concern books or publishing. It is a response to the attacks on Israel. Read at your own risk.

In the last hundred years, the United States has twice been attacked on its own soil with thousands of  casualties. The first was Pearl Harbor; the second, 9-11. Both of those times, it responded by going to war. And war is not, by its nature, a calibrated proportional response to the attack that led to it.

As a percentage of population, the attacks that began Saturday in Israel have dwarfed, by far, both of those events. After so many years of affirming "Never again," Jews have seen their deadliest day since the Holocaust. And there are other fundamental differences. Pearl Harbor and 9-11, especially the latter, resulted in the deaths of civilians. However, neither of them included face-to-face slaughter of entire families. Or mass rape of women. Or rape followed by murder, or by the display of the naked, bloody bodies of the victims to ecstatic crowds. Or the wholesale murder of babies, in some cases by beheading. Or children surrounded by the same crowds to be taunted and beaten. Or the taking of well over a hundred civilian hostages.

These atrocities are not unprecedented. Many hundreds of years ago, this is what happened when cities were sacked. More recently, there have been civil wars and religious conflicts featuring the same horrific barbarism. Russian forces have been accused of similar acts in their war against Ukraine. But those who are excusing or even cheering the attacks perpetrated by Hamas, supported and possibly planned by Iran, should think carefully about whether they want this way of waging war to become, in a much-used phrase, the new normal.

On both December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001, the entities that attacked us meant to wound us to the heart, and/or to change our foreign policy in dramatic ways. In neither case did they have the ambition to wipe the United States and its citizens out of existence. Hamas and Iran have made no secret of their intent to destroy Israel and its Jews. Israel, unlike the USA when embarking on those previous wars, is facing -- not for the first time -- an existential threat.

You may recall how the USA ended World War II, the war we only entered because of the attack on Pearl Harbor. You know the names Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Israel very likely has more, and much more powerful, nuclear weapons than the United States had at that time. Israel could easily drop such bombs on Gaza, and may well have the military capacity to hit Iran with them as well. Should we expect that earthshaking outcome?

I for one doubt it, and here's why. When we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, we had a different goal. We wanted to induce Japan to surrender, and to do so before the USA suffered hundreds of thousands of fatalities and more than a million casualties. Israel, on the other hand, knows that neither the Hamas jihadists nor the Iranian mullahs are likely to surrender, no matter how many of their people are killed. What Israel needs to do is wipe out Hamas, both its soldiers and its leadership, and permanently change Iran's regime, which probably means killing everyone currently in it. A sufficient nuclear attack could achieve that goal, but the huge number of civilian casualties involved will probably discourage Israel from taking the nuclear path unless absolutely necessary.

So Israel and its enemies are facing either a very well aimed campaign of targeted strikes, whether from the air or from the ground, or else a long, bloody conventional war. It may well be impossible to avoid igniting yet another cycle of hatred and longing for revenge. Israel will most likely strive, still, to keep civilian casualties to a minimum -- while realizing that the possible "minimum" has unavoidably changed. But no one should count on, and no one can in good conscience insist upon, any overriding concern with this war's being "proportional."

Release Day!! for fantasy novel FAR FROM MORTAL REALMS

 It's finally here! Or rather, they're finally here -- Release Day, and the book.

(I made the .gif on Photofunia, which is a delightful time sink.)

If you're reading this post, you may have already read the multiple excerpts I posted over the last couple of weeks. If not, you still can! (If you got to this post via social media, just head to my blog, Looking Around, and scroll down.) In either case, here's the book description.

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Negotiating with the Fair Folk is a tightrope walk over deadly perils. 

And even the most skilled can misstep.

The many wondrous realms the Fair Folk inhabit offer tempting opportunities for mortals hoping to benefit from faerie magic. But making bargains with the Fair Folk is a dangerous business, for the fae have a habit of leaving loopholes to snare the unwary. Father-and-daughter lawyers Abe and Adira have made a career out of helping their fellow humans reach such agreements safely.

Abe and Adira know the rules for dealing with Fair Folk: don't reveal your true name, don't say thank you, don't accept gifts, don't eat fae food, don't tell even the slightest of lies . . . . Oh, and always, no matter the provocation, be unfailingly polite.

A moment of carelessness, a brief lapse, and a professional defender of mortal interests may be in dire need of rescue.

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This is where I've been putting the preorder link, but hurrah! It's now an order link, and I hope you'll hurry over and make use of it. You should have a choice of the Kindle edition or the paperback. (By the way, what used to be called the "Look Inside" feature, available by clicking on the cover, is now "Read sample," a separate link below the cover.) As I mentioned in an earlier post, the paperback has been available for preorder on Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and possibly elsewhere -- so it should now be available to actually purchase from those sites.

Once you read the book, I would be deeply grateful for ratings and reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, blogs, or anywhere else that occurs to you. Thanks again for sharing this release ride with me!

Very short excerpt: the ultimate teaser

 Far From Mortal Realms comes out tomorrow! So as far as excerpts are concerned, I'll leave you with this very short and redacted cliffhanger. (I'm not bothering with ellipses where a few words have been deleted to avoid spoilers.)

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"But you may not so blithely leave this realm behind. Here you will stay.”

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I hope I've sufficiently intrigued you that you'll want to go on from there! The preorder link -- which is already the order link for the paperback edition -- is here. And here's one more look at the (IMHO) gorgeous cover -- in 3D this time.

While you're waiting for tomorrow's release, I hope you'll consider sharing the preorder/order page or the book's Goodreads page on social media -- or mentioning it to someone you know. Every little bit helps!

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey. I hope it's been entertaining or even exciting for you. For me, it never gets old.

Next excerpt: the trial begins

On with the excerpts! We've heard Tom's side of the story. Now it's time for the rulers of the Ice Realm to hear it.

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Adira had almost had to drag Tom out of the cave, and his footsteps still dragged. Dad walked close behind them as if prepared to herd Tom along. The fae led them through a forest planted thick with what looked like birch trees, snow resting on their ice-encased branches. The earlier haze must have dissipated or otherwise vanished, for tonight, unlike the fateful night in question, there was a moon shining through the trees, and here and there Adira could see stars glimmering where leaves would have obscured them. Dad was mumbling to himself the way he sometimes did before meetings, when there were points he wanted to make sure to remember.

And then they were suddenly out of the forest, and the lake stretched in front of them, frozen ripples along its nearest edge and flat frosted ice beyond. Tom stumbled and moaned. Adira hadn’t realized she could hear Dad breathing until his breaths stopped for several seconds, then resumed with a quiet gasp.

Off to the right, about ten yards away, stood three tall ice fae, wearing what must have been crowns, though they looked like branches broken off from the trees and fashioned into headdresses. On the upper points of the branches, diamond-like chunks of ice had been fastened, like those their escort wore, but larger and shining with their own light. Beyond and behind the three, a cluster of other beings had gathered, ice fae and a few other creatures: two foxes in winter pelts, one snow-white dove, three incongruous crows – and two white seal pups.

Surely seals were salt water creatures, not fresh? Dad tapped her shoulder to draw her attention and mouthed the words, Their Majesties. For whatever reason, the rulers of the ocean realm had come to observe.

The tallest of the crowned fae, standing between the other two, struck the ground with a tall white branch it held like a rod of office. “We begin,” it announced in a voice somewhere between a creak and a shriek. “We will first hear from the accused, and then from his advocates. Accused mortal, step forward.”

If they had had more time, and if they had known what was coming, she and Dad would have discussed the pros and cons of having Tom speak. Trial lawyers were often wary, for good reason, of having a defendant testify and possibly give the prosecution useful ammunition. Here, they had no choice – and it would probably work well enough. Tom’s youthful demeanor, his terror, and the details he would relate might well do more good than harm.

Tom told his tale again, in much the same words and even less coherently. When he had repeated half his sentences and finally stammered to a halt, the crowned figure to the tallest one’s left stepped forward and held up a scorched stick of wood. “Is this the torch you lit?”

Tom stared at the piece of wood, panting, his breath making little clouds. “It – it may be, but I wasn’t looking at it – I was trying to see where I was.”

The branch vanished as the fae said in its eerie voice, “So you did light a torch.”

“I – I – I didn’t know – I’m so sorry, I’m so awfully sorry, I wish I’d never done it! I wish I’d frozen to death and gone to heaven, instead of ending up in the lake forever and never dying and never going home and never seeing anyone I love again and – ” He dropped to his knees, arms outstretched in desperation. “Oh, please, please don’t do it! I didn’t know!”

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What happens to Tom? And then what? Keep reading. . . . There's only one more excerpt to go, though, and that's a short one, so you may just want the preorder link. (The paperback has become available ahead of schedule, so that's also an order link!) If you'd rather preorder from Barnes & Noble's online store, you can do it here. And if you haven't yet clicked "Want to Read" on the book's Goodreads page, it's still there waiting for you . . . .

That last excerpt appears tomorrow. Until then!

The next excerpt: Adira's and the reader's introduction to the Ice Realm

And we're back to excerpts from my upcoming fantasy novel Far From Mortal Realms, coming out September 15th!

As you may have guessed, Abe and Adira have, despite their trepidations, decided to take on the case of the boy who lit a torch in the Ice Realm. Now it's time for them to enter the realm and meet the boy.

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Adira hadn’t realized how grateful she had been for the return of spring, until she found herself once again plunged so deep into winter.

The portal brought them to a wilderness of bare trees stretching in every direction, their branches coated in ice to the very tips. Her father’s earlier description suggested that he had visited on a sunnier day; the ice did not glint or glimmer in what muted light came through. The air seemed dry, and yet the cold seeped into her as if borne by damp currents.

Two ice fae met them at the portal, their skin – if it was skin – resembling silvery bark. She could see nothing, amongst the lines of the bark, that looked like eyes, though the fae did have what appeared to be mouths. Not that they seemed to have anything to say to the visiting mortals. Was she imagining the hostility she felt radiating from them, some combination of disdain and aversion? She had no way to know, though she wasn’t given to pessimistic flights of fancy.

Where was their client? As soon as she asked herself that question, a boy appeared between the fae, trembling, eyes wide with panic. The fae seized and held his arms, tight enough that they must be hurting him. Still without speaking, they pivoted to the right, dragging the boy with them, and started walking, long strides covering the ground swiftly, the clusters of roots that served as their feet piercing the crust of snow. Adira and her father lurched into motion to catch up.

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And here's Tom telling Abe and Adira what happened to him.

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The two fae led them to a sort of cave, icicles hanging from its entrance and frost patterns covering its walls in an simpler semblance of tapestry, and wordlessly pointed to its interior. The three of them sat on cold stone benches at a small, roughly hewn stone table, Tom across from Abe and Adira and reaching out to clutch Adira’s hands. He could have been inspired by her undoubted attractiveness, his sweetheart notwithstanding, but from his pallor and Adira’s warm, gentle expression, it seemed more likely that he was viewing her as a sort of maternal surrogate, or at least an adopted aunt. And he was confiding in her, in a panicked babble. “I didn’t know! I was distracted, and I got lost, I couldn’t see anything I knew, there wasn’t any moon . . . and it kept getting colder, and my hands and feet were going numb . . . and then I saw a flicker of light and thought it was from someone’s window, or even my pa coming out to look for me . . . .” He choked back a sob.

A light, on a moonless night in the realm of the ice fae. What might explain it? Some ceremony or revel of which Abe was ignorant?

Or a light kindled for Tom’s benefit, as a lure?

“So I went toward it, and I thought everything would be all right, and then it just – disappeared. And I was left in the dark, still lost. And then I stumbled over a branch, and I remembered that I had matches with me, and I could maybe make a torch to see where I was. I figured the weight of ice must’ve brought it down, though there wasn’t any ice left on it.” He let out something between a sob and a laugh. “I thought I was lucky to find it, that fortune was being kind to me.”

Neither fortune nor fate may have set it in his path.

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To preorder, go here. (That Amazon link now includes the paperback.☺) Whether or not you order the book before the release date, I'd be VERY grateful if you would share these blog posts, or tell friends about the book, or plan to post a review of it once you've read it . . . or all of the above. Help me keep writing!

Next time: an excerpt from Tom's trial. 

The plot proper begins: another excerpt from my upcoming novel

As the title to this post heralds, I'm no longer setting the stage. This is where the trouble starts blowing toward the fan. The self-styled Viscount of Bloomingshire has appeared without an appointment, and is now explaining why.

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The viscount took the offered chair, throwing its long coattails behind it as it did so. It smirked at Adira and said, “Do pardon me, fair lady, and you, good sir, for my unheralded appearance, but I have become aware of an urgent situation in which your unequaled skills may be all that stand between a hapless mortal and a regrettable fate.”

Adira fetched legal pads for Dad and for herself as Dad said, “We would of course like to hear about this situation. Please go on.”

From the recesses of its cape, the viscount conjured a heavily gilded box of snuff and took a pinch. “I am perhaps being precipitate. Have you ever involved yourself in what we may call criminal trials among my people?”

A mere few minutes ago, Adira had been contemplating with pleasure and longing the idea of Dad’s leftover baked goods, and then a big bowl of hot soup at the nearest coffee shop. Now her stomach cramped with something more like cold. “No, we haven’t taken on any cases of that kind.”

Dad cleared his throat. “Actually, not that long after I began this practice, I did handle such a matter. The details, of course, are confidential, and the memory is not one I often revisit.” Adira glanced over at him to see his expression uncharacteristically bleak.

The viscount nodded. “Ah, I see. That would be before you and I began our association, would it not? I should apologize for reviving such unhappy recollections. Perhaps I should say no more of the unfortunate boy of whom I planned to speak.”

Adira had never entirely trusted the viscount, and she trusted it even less now. She opened her mouth to concur, just as Dad said, “No, please go on.” From his tone, he had similar reservations, but his professional conscience appeared more active, at the moment, than any sense of self-preservation.

The viscount sat back, with the air of one about to embark on an engrossing story. “Has either of you ever visited our realm of infinite ice?”

“I have, for one case,” Dad replied. “It’s a truly marvelous sight, with mountains like daggers and a frozen lake stretching off to the horizon, and icicles hanging from every surface, and the trees unbowed by those icicles, and the sunlight – when there is any – glinting off it all.”

“Indeed, a lovely sight. It is equally lovely in moonlight – yes, day and night do follow each other there, much as in your environs. And there are also moonless nights, where only those with adequate vision may find their way unhindered. There is one other fact, unsurprising once one considers the matter, which you must understand. Fire of any kind is strictly – oh, most strictly – forbidden throughout this realm, with the sole and rare exception of certain ceremonial uses of which I must not speak. Can you, now, begin to guess what must have occurred to require your assistance?”

Adira looked intently at the viscount. “You mentioned a boy. He came there on some errand and then made a fire?”

The viscount examined its polished fingernails and sighed. “That is almost correct. This boy – sixteen years old, I believe – had no errand, and indeed, to hear him tell it, he had no idea he had crossed the boundary between a mortal and a faerie realm. He was wandering home from his sweetheart’s house, no doubt filled with fond thoughts of her charms, and blundered into the ice realm. Naturally, since he did not belong there, he had no idea how to get where he did belong, and could scarcely see where he was in fact going. So he found a fallen branch – ”

Surprising, that a branch had fallen from one of those unbowed trees.

“ – and, using some supplies he had with him, contrived to turn it into a torch, the better to find his way. Naturally, he attracted attention, and has been detained pending the administrative proceeding that will see him consigned to the ice.”

Dad scribbled a few notes, possibly to buy time, before he asked quietly, “Please explain just what that entails.”

The viscount produced a tight-lipped smile. “My dear counselor, the phrase is both literal and descriptive. He will be immersed in the lake, pursuant to a spell that will prevent him from drowning or from requiring sustenance, with a patch above him enchanted to remain clear so that he may contemplate the world he will never be allowed to reenter. This clear area of ice will also allow passersby to see him, and whatever anguished expression he may have, and so be reminded of the price of such folly.”

Adira had little occasion to regret her vivid visual imagination, but she did at this moment. In fact, she jumped to her feet, excused herself in brief and incoherent fashion, and rushed from the room, walking as fast as she could to the bathroom in case she had to vomit. Staring into the mirror only reminded her of that boy, who might soon be staring up at a sheet of impenetrable glass . . . .

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Will Abe and Adira take this case? That shouldn't be too hard to guess. Next time, you'll see where that takes them.

And to read far further than my excerpts will take you, you can preorder the book! If you prefer paperbacks, you can preorder the paperback edition from at least two online retailers, Barnes & Noble and BooksAMillion. You could also click "Want to Read" on the book's Goodreads page -- and if I've got you interested enough, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Excerpt from FAR FROM MORTAL REALMS: a subplot concerning a changeling

 

I've been taking my time reaching the beginning of the plot proper because not too long after that point, it will become difficult to post excerpts without including spoilers. But tomorrow's excerpt gets there! In the meantime, here's another look at the dark side of human/faerie contact, and at a subplot that will be woven into the primary plot.

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The curtains of the pleasant little house were drawn tight, as if to hide whatever was happening inside. The man who opened the door had a glass in his hand. From either the glass or the man came the rich caramel smell of whiskey. He stepped aside from the doorway, beckoned them in, and toasted to them as they entered. “Welcome! ‘M in charge here, I s’poze. The missus went upstairs to lay down.” He pointed a wavering arm toward the back of the house. “Been crying a lot, pour soul. Says it doesn’t much matter what I do, the whatever-it-is can take care of itself.”

They walked through a short entryway and came to what appeared to be a family room. Abe could see no trace of a baby – no playpen, no toys, no small blankets or spit-up rags. Following Abe’s gaze with the exaggerated concentration of the inebriated, the man pointed to a doorway off to one side of the room. “His bedroom’s in there. Well, the baby’s bedroom, and that’s where we’ve been keeping the, whatdyacallit, the changeling. You’ll be wanting to take a look at it, so go on ahead. I’ll just have a seat here and wait.” Without waiting for any response, he half sat, half fell onto a well-stuffed sofa and took another sip of his drink.

In the bedroom they found everything missing from the earlier room, perfectly in order, like a showroom in a baby store or a magazine photograph. A white-painted wood crib stood against one wall, a blue and yellow checked quilt folded over one end, a blue and white Calder-style mobile hung above it and turning lazily in invisible air currents. A matching dresser with its knobs painted yellow faced it across the room. Half curtains in pale blue, with any cords tucked well out of reach, graced the matching windows on the wall between. A rocking chair, also in white wood, upholstered in white and yellow patterned fabric, sat opposite the crib next to the dresser, occupied at present by only a blue, oversized stuffed rabbit.

“Hidin’ again.” The slurred voice of the father, from the doorway behind her, made Abe start and Adira jump. “Dunno how it does that. M’ wife noticed first. I didn’t believe her ‘til I saw it. Should’ve believed her, what with the other things.”

From the crib came a ringing laugh, and then a baby appeared, standing and bouncing on its toes, as delighted as any baby playing peek-a-boo. It had silvery-white straight hair, more than any baby its age Abe could remember seeing. Its eyes were an unrelieved black, pupils and irises indistinguishable. And there was something else odd about it . . . . When the baby laughed again, he had it.

Teeth. The baby had a full set of perfect white teeth.

Abe tapped Adira on the shoulder and pointed. She moved closer to look and then turned back toward him. “It could be a mutation of some kind. And . . . we could have missed seeing the baby at first, from some trick of the light.” Then she did a double-take and spun to face the crib again.

So quietly Abe could barely hear it, and then louder, its voice high and ringing like the sound a wet finger could coax from the rim of a wineglass, the baby was singing, singing words Abe could almost, but not quite, understand, a liquid language that drew him to step nearer and nearer to the crib.

And then from behind him, discordant and halting, came the sound of the father trying to sing along, first imitating the alien words and then adding his own. “Bay - bee - strange - little - bay - bee - are - you - my - bay - bee . . . .”

Abe turned away from Adira to hide the tears in his eyes.

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Here's the obligatory link to the preorder page, which now shows a tantalizing hint about the paperback edition. Until next time!

Next excerpt from FAR FROM MORTAL REALMS: what spurred Abe to open this kind of law practice

 

Welcome back to my excerpts from upcoming fantasy novel Far From Mortal Realms! In this one, Adira is defending their unusual law practice to an official from the county bar association. (For an explanation of bar associations, see here. "Bar" is often used to mean some legal organization or function: for example, the journals law schools publish with articles about various legal topics are called bar reviews. And I'm now yielding to the impulse to mention that when I was in law school, we had a bar-crawling club called the Somerville Bar Review.) The official asks how her father, who started the practice before Adira joined it, had come to pick this peculiar specialty, and Adira explains.

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“He became aware of several unfortunate incidents. For example, there was the owner of a new dry cleaning business – quite a nice fellow, apparently – who somehow met a fae from the Winter Court. They’re the most likely to be malicious, which the owner hadn’t heard. He didn’t want to waste the opportunity, and asked for an enchantment to clean the most delicate fabrics without damaging them. When he asked what they would take in exchange, he should have known better than to accept the answer that it would be their pleasure, and that they had a use for the stains. Given what those fae take pleasure in, it was true, as it had to be . . . From that moment, every stain he removed, with the enchantment or without it, stained his skin and that of his customers, and nothing would remove those stains.”

Fells seemed less than impressed. Now that she’d gone this far, she’d tell him the grimmer complete version of what had spurred Dad into action, and see how he liked the taste of it. “Then two horrendous encounters came to my father’s attention. First, a man who taught creative writing wanted to write a best-selling novel and become famous. The fae arranged for him to get arrested for some gruesome crime that got lots of publicity, and a great many people bought his book out of morbid curiosity.” Fells’ eyes widened, and he gulped. Well, he’d asked for it. “And then someone went for that old favorite, wanting to live forever. He ended up permanently asleep, and from what family observers could tell, having frequent awful nightmares.”

Maybe it had been a mistake to dwell on these details. She’d had a few of her own nightmares when she first joined the practice, and she’d been happy to see them fade with time. Too late now. “After more than a month of this, the man’s wife got desperate and tried killing him – a mercy killing. But it didn’t work. The man woke up just long enough to realize what was happening, and then fell asleep again, healing as he slept. The wife could only guess what new nightmare he had afterward.” She’d ended up killing herself instead, but Fell had clearly heard enough. He looked somewhere between pale and green.

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As always, you can follow this link to read the book's teaser, see the cover, and/or preorder. There's something new this time: the description now has a tag line. Tell me what you think of it!

Stay tuned for more excerpts!

A personal aside: on memory, generations, and unanswered questions

 During these last few years, during which and since I lost my parents, I've often thought about the questions I did and didn't ask them. Some, that have to do with my father's childhood and Army days, I've been able to ask my uncle Bert. For the latter days of my mother's childhood and beyond, I could ask my uncle Arian. But when it comes to my own childhood, there's no one left. My brother, who would have been the best if not necessarily an objective witness, died in 2005.

It occurred to me this morning that along with many details of my earliest past, I'm forgetting my far more recent past. When I try to remember my children's childhoods, whether to answer a question or not, I often can't. Either I can't remember to which child a detail pertains, or I can't retrieve it at all. So even if I could still ask my parents my various questions, they might not be able to answer me. I'm not sure whether that's a comfort, exactly, but it at least softens some regrets.