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.

Excerpt from FAR FROM MORTAL REALMS: magical settings

Welcome back to my series of excerpts from my upcoming fantasy novel Far From Mortal Realms! Today I'm combining two excerpts (or three, if snipping some language in the middle of the first turns it into two). These excerpts convey something of the magic, in both the literal and figurative sense, of the Fair Folk realms Abe and Adira are allowed to visit in the course of their law practice.

The first begins a few hours after the excerpt I posted previously. Abe is telling Adira where they're due to go next.

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How would you like to talk to some trees?”

“You mean dryads? Doesn’t that rather depend on the particular dryads?”

Dad’s grin made a welcome contrast to the fae version they’d both been enduring from the viscount that morning. “I don’t, in fact, mean dryads. This particular grove of trees has no interest in mimicking either human form or the more common faerie configurations. They typically communicate via the shifting patterns of their leaves in sunlight – year-round leaves in, for the most part, year-round sunlight. Not even other fae can understand it. They would like to welcome some sort of flowering plants, such as are common in our own fields and forests – rather than any fae equivalents that would have their own possibly incompatible personalities. They wish us to advise them on the best choice and assist in obtaining the necessary starter crop.”

Adira couldn’t stop her eyes from going wide. “And in order to do this . . . .”

Dad actually rubbed his hands together. “In order that we may communicate with them conveniently, they will temporarily grant us the ability to understand their language of light and shadow.”

How long would this job last? Oh, how tempting to drag her feet so it would last longer . . . . 

[snip]

Several hours later, back at the office, Adira drifted somewhere between exhilaration and exhaustion. Even with the trees’ grant of comprehension, keeping track of the sometimes minute changes in light patterns required constant attention. But how lovely were the patterns, and how subtly different the silent voices of the various trees!

After discussing in what ways the trees had become dissatisfied with their ageless copses and glens, and confirming that actual flowers were preferred to moss, they had settled on bluebells. Someone would need to plant the initial bulbs, and it remained to be decided whether these workers would be mortal or fae – which meant Adira and her father would not yet have to relinquish their knowledge of the language. As for the patience needed to let the bluebells spread, trees had patience aplenty, and it pleased them that the flowers would be connected by a system of roots.

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Later that afternoon, Abe and Adira move on to their next appointment. This excerpt begins by describing the portal the lawyers use to travel from their office to Fair Folk realms.

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It was always visible to them – and to Mom, maybe because she was a member of the family. Anyone else, or at least any other mortal, would see nothing there, and would walk through unaffected unless she or Dad intended them to do otherwise. What met Adira’s eyes, as usual, was an oval ring hovering an inch or so above the ground, just big enough for her to step through without ducking. It sparkled in ever-shifting colors in her peripheral vision, more like mist when she looked at it head-on, and showed a changing series of vistas. Only when they came within a yard of it would that view change to their destination. But what greeted her this afternoon was not so much a sight as the sensation of wind, and fine sprays of water on the wind, and the smell of salt.

She stopped in her tracks, only to find Dad grabbing her hand and pulling her forward.

They were standing on what might be called a cliff, about hill-height. And they were facing the sea, that salty wind in their hair, with small waves rolling in and breaking on a beach of silvery sand and scattered shells.

Adira turned to her father. “Dad, who are we waiting for? Are they coming by boat?”

He laughed, not mocking her but as if delight had filled him to overflowing and come out as laughter. “Wait just a minute, sweetheart, and you’ll see!”

She looked out at the horizon, breathing deep of the sea-scented air, and saw something emerging, or growing, or approaching. She couldn’t make out any details – and then she could, because she saw the backlit, translucent jade of waves, waves rushing toward them, waves growing taller and taller, until she was sure she and Dad would be drenched or even swept off the cliff – 

And then the waves stopped, suddenly, just behind their far smaller counterparts breaking on the beach. Two enormous standing waves faced them, topped with high white crests ruffling in the wind and shedding spray all around.

Her jaw dropped, confronted with grandeur; and then snapped shut again, as she imagined surfing those waves, and shut the thought down in case these formidable fae, for so these two waves must be, could somehow sense that desire.

Dad, beside her, spoke into the hiss of the small waves that mounted the shingle and drew back again. “Hello again, Your Majesties. As we discussed, I have brought my daughter, who is my equal partner in all that we do. Let me make her known to you as Valentina, which in one of our tongues means ‘strong and powerful.’”

A rumble, not quite a roar, carried across the gulf between waves and cliff. “Welcome, counselors. . . ."

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The ocean rulers in the preceding scene were inspired by this extraordinary photograph by Darragh Gorman of Lighthouse Industries. If you're on Instagram, I recommend looking  him up there.

Of course, setting is only the beginning of story, and traumatic events can take place in marvelous places. The next excerpt will be the beginning. . . .

To see where the story takes these characters, you can order the book here and start reading on September 15th. 

Musings on Omar Khayyam and George Eliot

 Happy Sunday! I'm taking a break from the series of excerpts I've been posting from my upcoming novel, in order to share this morning's minor literary epiphany.

Douglas Murray has a Sunday column called "Things Worth Remembering," available (among other places) on The Free Press. This morning, the column discussed Persian poet Omar Khayyam and his famous work The Rubaiyat, brilliantly translated by English poet Edward FitzGerald. While Murray emphasizes the extent to which this collection of quatrains follows a "seize the day" theme, he also quoted one with quite a different message.

LXXI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

I've read this poem more than once over the years, but only this morning did it strike me how similar its point is to that sometimes conveyed by another famous author.

I've long been an admirer of British author George Eliot. One of her rarer qualities is the willingness and ability to impress on the reader a particular uncomfortable reality: some choices, some actions or failures to act, are irrevocable. Good will, good intentions, good reputation, good self-image can do nothing to undo certain decisions. The novel in which she most directly focuses on this fact is, I believe, Adam Bede. (For a description that includes spoilers, see Wikipedia. I was surprised to note, in that write-up, that this was Eliot's first published novel.)

Are there other authors you know about who also confront readers with this fact? Let me know in the comments! 

First more traditional excerpt from my upcoming fantasy novel

 I'm glad I thought of starting this series of excerpts from Far From Mortal Realms with the book's Dedication. Now, however, it's time for excerpts more than a few words long.

The first such excerpt comes from Chapter 1. Abe and his daughter Adira, partners in a law practice that helps humans make contracts with the Fair Folk more safely, are discussing the morning's agenda. This passage introduces not  only Abe and Adira but an important faerie character. It also gives a few examples of the kind of loopholes the lawyers habitually identify and close.

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“Let’s move on. What’s our schedule for the day?”

Abe looked over at the clock again. “In a little more than half an hour, we have a dedicated gardener on a quest to capture the blue ribbon for his not-yet-prizewinning tomatoes. He’s heard about a previous winner getting an assist from the Fair Folk and wants us to negotiate something similar.”

Adira shook her head, setting her black hair bouncing. “What, didn’t he hear about what happened afterward?”

Abe grimaced and replied, “As I recall, after that fellow’s garden reached his roof in a giant tangle and lifted it free of the walls, he had the plants torn out – twice – and then paid even more for the fae to make them disappear. But perhaps our client is less up to date than we are on fae-related news. At least he has the good sense to hire us to get him reasonable terms. Any thoughts?”

Adira swallowed the final bite of her brownie and said, “We can see whether he grows anything that any of the Fair Folk – hold on, with whom are we negotiating, given how many different parties could provide this service?”

Abe smirked. “Your favorite middleman, or middle-fae I should say, has agreed to shop our client’s offer around.” He ducked as Adira grabbed a muffin and pretended to throw it at him. Adira had little patience for the preferred glamour and habits of the being who styled itself the Viscount of Bloomingshire, though both professional courtesy and simple self-preservation required her to show it the most exquisite politeness.

As he expected, Adira put aside her show of temper and focused on the problem at hand. “So. We can see whether any of . . . the viscount’s contacts would like some of the client’s seeds or seedlings, whether of tomatoes or some other crop. Aren’t tomatoes related to some poisonous plant? That might appeal. Or he could offer to grow some fae plants and provide opportunities for his neighbors to see them. That lets everyone involved show off. Of course, he’d have to make sure not to eat any, nor to let anyone else do so.”

Abe chewed his lip. “We’d have to include a clause saying that whatever plants they provided wouldn’t shape themselves into a faerie ring and transport our gardener or his guests anywhere. And we’ll set reasonable growth limits, and exclude any dangerous or unsightly mutations. Anything else we’ll have to watch out for?”

Adira tossed her head and said, “We’ll give the final language a good going-over, of course, but I think our usual boilerplate will take care of the other hazards. Though I fully expect our dear middle-fae to suggest some of it is unnecessary – say, the clauses that protect us as well as our client.”

“Do you, really, after the dozens of times he’s dealt with us? Would you care to make a small wager?”

Adira waved away the offer, took a sniff of her muffin – carrot and ginger, worth the smelling, if he did say so – and said, “What’s next?”

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I'll include the preorder link with all excerpts, in case that excerpt is the one that intrigues someone enough to follow the link. Here it is.

See you all next excerpt! 

How I chose my upcoming novel's Dedication photo

 My fantasy novel Far From Mortal Realms comes out on September 15th. The Kindle edition should be available that day, and with a little luck, the paperback will be as well. (As for other ebook formats, I haven't yet decided whether to put the book in Kindle Unlimited, which would at least temporarily prevent me from offering them.) Over the three weeks between now and that release date, I'll be posting some excerpts from the book. In a way, this is one of them.

The photo I've chosen for the book's Dedication is a cropped version of my father's official Army portrait. I'm not sure I ever, in the sixty-one years I knew him, saw him looking this stern. Nevertheless, his expression doesn't really surprise me. Dad and his immediate family had escaped Nazi Germany shortly before Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), which marked the transition between "few German Jews can find a way to escape the Nazis" and "escape is essentially impossible." He was fifteen at that time. Years later, after a year or so in Palestine (as it was then known) and another three or so in New York, he and one of his brothers went back to Europe with the U.S. Army. From what he and others have told me, he saw himself as a sort of avenging angel. This portrait shows as much.

The text of the Dedication doesn't refer directly to this time in Dad's life, but to his later life as a father. It reads:

"To my father, who always strove to protect and rescue his children."

Abe, one of the two protagonists of Far From Mortal Realms, is much older when the book starts than my father was in this portrait. But the strength and determination in the photo strike me as appropriate to illustrate the qualities of a father resolved to do whatever he must, whatever the dangers to be incurred and the obstacles to be overcome, to rescue his daughter.

To learn more about the book, see the incredible cover (designed by Rebecacovers), and if you care to, preorder the Kindle edition, follow the link. 

A list I made of recommended science fiction -- in a particular category

 

It's always pleasant to have some person/website/entity contact me because I'm an author. The latest was a website called Shepherd (with a nice little illustration of a shepherd as its logo). Its mission is to help readers discover good books via recommendations from a wide range of authors. Could I, would I come up with a list of five books to recommend, in any category I dreamt up?

Responding to this request led me to muse on what draws me to a story as a reader. Apparently, among other things, I often end up reading stories (SFF or other genres) whose protagonists are struggling with past traumas. The result: a list of five SFF (science fiction and fantasy) novels with emotionally scarred characters. 

I mentioned in the writeup of the list that my first novel (aside from juvenilia), Twin-Bred, featured such a character. The format provided to me didn't leave room for me to add that several of my other novels, including most books in the Cowbird Creek series, do as well. Is it time for me to build a novel around a completely unscarred innocent? . . . 

Why I wrote my upcoming fantasy, FAR FROM MORTAL REALMS

 Now and then, I read (or at least skim) some article about how to write, publish, or promote either a novel or a picture book (I write both). The other day, I was looking through a launch plan and workbook from marketingforchildrensauthors.com. It provides some "social tips," including the advice to talk about why I wrote this particular book. What motivated and inspired me? I wasn't sure how I'd answer that question for my upcoming fantasy -- and then I remembered.

For many years, I've played with and poked at the idea of some being or other -- genie or faerie or visiting alien -- offering to grant me one or more wishes. I long since took to heart the lesson of W.W. Jacobs' short story "The Monkey's Paw": be careful, very careful, what you wish for. Its underlying prediction: wishing, if somehow made effective, will end badly.

I take that as a challenge. I've often tried to formulate a wish that no malign entity could twist into a weapon against me -- a wish with absolutely no loopholes such an entity could exploit. I've never been altogether satisfied with the results, but I'd probably try again if the opportunity arose to have a wish granted. I'm a lawyer, and this task has always struck me as particularly appropriate for a lawyer to undertake.

At some point prior to last year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), it struck me that if the world of the Fair Folk ever revealed itself, and if some of its inhabitants sought to entice mortals into making bargains, those mortals would be better off hiring a lawyer. And a lawyer fascinated with folklore might be more than ready to open such a practice. From that notion came Abe and Adira, father and daughter lawyers, and their practice in a region in Vermont where the Fair Folk have appeared.

Of course, being a lawyer isn't always enough to keep you safe.

Here's the book description (in its present form).

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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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The Kindle edition is now available for preorder. And since I love showing the cover, here it is again!

 

A confession and cautionary tale about last-minute draft changes

 I have a grievous literary error to confess.

As I was working on my fourth historical romance, What Wakes the Heart, I struggled with the name of the male protagonist. He was a Polish immigrant living in Cowbird Creek, Nebraska, and I wanted him to use an Anglicized first name. I puzzled over when to use that form of his name and when to use his true name, as well as what both those names should be. Until shortly before publication, my answer to the latter question was John and Jan (the latter pronounced "yahn"). I even had a scene in which he told Susannah (the female protagonist) about the immigration workers' reaction to his name, their initial confusion quickly yielding to a series of jests.

The problem was: "Jan" reads as a female name in English, and I didn't want my readers constantly stumbling and doing double-takes. ("Wait, who's Jan, and when did she walk in?") So at pretty much the last minute, I replaced John and Jan with Carl and Karol. The "k" in Karol would, I hoped, keep readers from confusing it with the girl's name Carol. To implement this change, I used "find and replace," though I checked each use of either name to make sure I'd picked the correct name, Anglicized or original.

All very well -- but only this morning, more than seven months after I published the book, did I realize to my horror that I'd failed to search for the possessive "John's." And once I did that search, I found an abundance of them. Anyone reading the book would have realized how sloppy I'd been. Most series readers find the Cowbird Creek series via Kindle Unlimited, and I have little doubt that many of them gave up the book partway through in irritation and perhaps disgust. I may have lost series readers permanently. And I've contributed to the poor opinion many readers still have of self-published books.

Mea culpa -- mea maxima culpa.

Once I discovered my error, I made haste to correct the Kindle and paperback editions of the book. As of this writing (May 17th, 1 p.m. EDT), the corrected Kindle edition is already live, and the paperback should follow soon. So here is my plea: if you started What Wakes the Heart and set it aside because of the sudden intrusions of unexplained "John's," please consider giving it another try. I am hardly objective, but I consider it a pretty good book, both as historical fiction and as romance. And I promise not to make the same mistake again. (As for other mistakes . . . no promises, but I'll try to be more generally careful.)

Here's the cover, which I hope may please or intrigue a few of you.

 And here's the Amazon link. The paperback is also available at Barnes & Noble and other retailers, though the corrected version won't appear there for more than a week. 

Next novel's cover, title, and description -- with a Kindle preorder link!

 Hello again! I'm finally ready to announce my next novel's title, show off the cover, and air my draft book description. Here, to start with, is the cover -- which will also tell you the title.

I love it! Rebeca of Rebecacovers (on Fiverr) did the cover and patiently endured my multiple requests for tweaks and my delay in providing a title.

The subtitle, "A Novel of Humans and Fae," gives a bit of an idea as to where I'm going this time, but here's a more complete explanation. Please weigh in as to whether this description intrigues you, and let me know about any words or phrases that annoy you!

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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 ensnare 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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Yup, Fair Folk and lawyers! I hope the description convinces any doubters that this combination makes more sense than they may have initially thought.

I haven't had the cover in hand all that long, but I've held off on this announcement for a few days in order to include a preorder link (for the Kindle edition). Here's that link!

I'll be seeking beta readers, and then reviewers, well before the September 15th release date. If you'd be interested in either role, please let me know in the comments.