Kattomic Energy

Sandra Seamans on Sale!

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Sun, 27 May 2012 09:31:00 +0000

Sandra Seamans' debut collection Cold Rifts is now available from Snubnose Press. And when I say it's "on sale," I mean right now it's FREE. I snagged my copy around 12:01 a.m. and I can't wait to start reading it. Get your own copy here.

There Can Never Be Too Many Book Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Sun, 27 May 2012 01:54:00 +0000

New Yorker Magazine enters the fray. Their blog is called Page Turner. Check it out here.

Feminist Fiction Friday: The Dystopian YA Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Thu, 24 May 2012 22:45:00 +0000

I am not a huge fan of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games. I prefer her wonderful Underland Chronicles, the first of which, Gregor the Overlander, is particularly good. But one thing Hunger Games did, and did really well, is open up the market for books about young heroines who aren't torn between two lovers. Katniss Everdeen is a kick-ass character, and thanks to Collins, she's not the only one out there.

Illustration by Jason Chan

Hugh Howey's Wool (originally self-published as five separate books) features reluctant heroine Juliette who discovers the terrible secret kept by those in charge and ends up the unlikely leader of a growing rebellion. The world of Wool, an arcology that determines status by the floor, with the higher regions reserved for the politicians and those who run things, is worked out neatly. There are a lot of great characters and romance and treachery and political shenanigans. Juliette is thrown into a difficult situation and it only gets worse. it's a very satisfying read and there are clearly a lot more stories to come.
Then there's 16-year-old Yukiko, the heroine of Jay Kristoff's dystopian Japanese steampunk novel Stormdancer due out in September (in the US). It's the first book in a planned series called The Lotus War. check out this site for more information on the book and the world.
If you love that Stormdancer cover (I do), check out the interview with the writer and the artist on Tor.com showing the evolution of the image.
Lauren Oliver, whose lovely Liesl & Po is one of my favorite books, has a series featuring 17-year-old Lena, who has defied the law against love in her Portland, ME community. The first book is called Delirium; the second, Pandemonium, was published in February.
Sixteen-year-old Tris Prior is the heroine of Veronica Roth's Divergent. (The cover art shamelessly evokes the "Mockingjay" logo of Hunger Games, just in case readers don't immediately identify the book's genre.) Book 2 of the series Insurgent, was published this month.
Graceling actually came out the year before Hunger Games (2009) but its intrepid teenage heroine Katsa is a bold woman whose particular skill is killing. Written by Kristen Cashore, who has written a "companion volume" called Fire.
YA has changed a lot since I was a YA. I love that young women have their own action heroines now. Romance is fine, but give us sword fights too!

Update to Less is More

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:37:00 +0000

The new winner of the longest title for a biography goes to Dr. Thomas Noguchi for:

Coroner; America's Most Controversial Medical Examiner explores the unanswered questions surrounding the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Sharon Tate, Janis Joplin, William Holden, Natalie Wood, John Belushi and many other of his important cases

Knock Knock. Who's There?

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Wed, 23 May 2012 01:44:00 +0000

It's Mark Satchwill who has written and illustrated the first NoHo comic strip story "Knock Knock," "Knock, Knock" will be published tomorrow and will be available for download as a pdf. Stop by the NoHo site tomorrow to check it out. And please leave a comment.

Book Titles: Less is More

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:53:00 +0000

I freely admit--I'm terrible with titles. They either occur to me right away or I end up agonizing over them for way too long and go with something lame. However, after compiling a list of biographies and memoirs for a new site (details soon), I don't feel so bad. You would not believe the number of authors who couldn't let well enough alone after coming up with a catchy title and saddled the book cover with the longest subtitles they could think of.
For instance: We Bought a Zoo. Not the greatest title in the world but it tells you what you need to know about the story, But just in case a reader has reading comprehension problems, the author added this subtitle: The Amazing True Story of a Broken-Down Zoo, and the 200 Animals That Changed a Family Forever. Then, when the movie tie-in audio book edition was published, it got an even loner subtitle: the Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives Forever. That's a total of 26 words. A couple of other book titles matched that total but so far, I haven't found any that surpassed it. There were a lot of titles in the 20-word range though.
Makes me even more appreciative of one-word mystery titles. And here's a link to a column by Bill Morris about the Appeals and Perils of the One-Word book title.

Pulp Ink 2 is coming!

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:25:00 +0000

I just signed off on Nigel Bird and Chris Rhatigan's edit of my story "Thicker than Water." And what graceful edits they were! I am thrilled to be in the company of so many great writers and cannot wait to read their stories. You can see the lineup here. Check out the great cover art.

Review: BLOOD WILL TELL by Christine Pope

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Sun, 20 May 2012 07:57:00 +0000

A woman searching for her father’s killer.

A man looking for his next score.

Miala has nothing in common with inter-galactic adventurer Eryk Thorn, but when fate throws them together, they discover they have more in common than an instinct for survival.

Author Christine Pope returns to the sci fi world of Breath of Lifein this sexy, savvy space opera.

Blood Will Tell begins with Miala undercover in the compound of Arlen Mast, the criminal mastermind who had her father killed. She's determined to take her vengeance and clean out his treasury while she's at it and she's got the hacker skills to do just that.

When fate intervenes and she finds herself in a position to claim Mast's booty, she also finds herself partnered up with the notorious Eryk Thorn, who hides his face under wrappings and keeps his past a secret.

But he's not the only one with secrets, and the longer Miala is around Thorn, the more complicated it gets. And just when we think we know how it's going to end, Pope surprises us by raising the stakes, raising the temperature and raising our expectations. The book is Pope's best yet. Not only that, but this book reads like the first in a series. I can't wait.

Feminist Fiction (Film) Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:52:00 +0000

I played hooky earlier this week and went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I didn't really have the time to spare but I knew if I didn't go to see it this week, it would be gone by this week. And I was right. Marigold is not a particularly good movie. Every single plot twist in the film is telegraphed before hand. And yet...messy as it is, predictable as it is, the movie is totally enjoyable. Not the least of the pleasures is watching the actors. Judi Dench. Bill Nighy. Maggie Smith. Tom Wilkinson, Dev Patel (of Slumdog Millionaire). It's kind of like watching an actor's master class.
Nighy and Dench have worked together before in Notes on a Scandal, and although that is a very different movie it has something in common with Marigold--it has a couple of terrific parts for women who are no longer young; who are in fact ... old. Both Maggie Smith and Judi Dench are 78. (Tom Wilkinson is 64; Nighy is not yet 63.) Both Smith and Dench have resumes that go back to the middle of the last century. Dench's first credit on IMDB is 1959; Smith's first listing is 1955. That's 1955 people--pre-Space Age.
In Marigold, both actresses play women who have been betrayed by the people they love. They're victims who ultimately refuse to be victimized and on their own terms, find happiness. They are not glamorous women. The camera zooms in on their fragile, wrinkled skin and it's a cruel contrast to the lovely, smooth-skinned ingenue who plays Dev's girlfriend in the film. And yet, the stories the audience want to see belong to the older actresses. (Nighy and Wilkinson are terrific in their roles too, but we are talking of women here.)

A day after I saw the movie, I started seeing the stills from the next James Bond movie, Skyfall. and there was a photo of Dench as "M" looking...stunning. Judi Dench and I are the same height (5'1") and believe me when I tell you how short that is. And yet...she looks like she could face down a couple of dictators before breakfast and still have time to whip out an economics treaty. In the movies that have always defined a very particular male fantasy, she is the woman in charge. I love that.
Then there's Maggie Smith. Her role as the Dowager Countess is the reason everyone is so addicted to Downton Abbey. She is playing a powerful woman whose power has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with intelligence and cunning.
I love that these women are still getting terrific roles. As with Helen Mirren (67) and Meryl Streep (63), they are defining what it means to be a woman of une certain age on screen They play women of substance.
Just as I was the oldest person in the audience when I went to see Twilight, I was by far the youngest person in the audience at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I sat behind a row of women in their 80s who loved every single moment of the movie. A lot of movies coming out of Hollywood these days marginalize women, make them into sex dolls and cartoons. But there is hope. Women like movies too--even women old enough to be great-grandmothers. It's nice to see a movie that celebrates life even in the "golden years."

Feminist Fiction Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:59:00 +0000

One of my clients is looking for books featuring women cops who are partnered with other women a la Cagney & Lacey. The book he had was really not good, so he challenged me to find one better. There's the Rizzoli & Isles books of course, but that's already been turned into a series. I realized that I couldn't think of any other books off the top of my head except for C.J. Lyons' books and her sleuths aren't cops, they're doctors and nurses. Anyone have any ideas?

Seriously?

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:42:00 +0000

My alarm radio went off this a.m. and I woke to the voices of various people urging me to come see them on the Gulf Coast. Men and women with heavy Southern accents were saying their names and their home towns (Biloxi, Mississippi is the only one I can remember) and urging me to come on down. The sponsor for this travel commercial? BP. That's right. The people responsible for despoiling said Gulf Coast.

Mother's Day Reading: "Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:49:00 +0000

Mother's Day is coming and I have been reading stories about mothers for the 365 Short Story Challenge I've been involved in. I ran across this story by Ken Liu, which is in the archives of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine. (You can read it online here.)
"Paper Menagerie" is a beautiful story, nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula Award and I don't know what won instead but this is a story that will haunt you. Check it out and then go to Liu's site to read his other stories, which have similarly been picked out for honors. He's a tremendously good writer.

Feminist (Non-) Fiction Friday--Erma Bombeck

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 05:06:00 +0000

When I was growing up there were a number of women writers whose stories of family life were published in magazines like Ladies Home Journal and McCalls and Good Housekeeping and in newspapers coast to coast. There was Jean Kerr (wife to theater critic Walter Kerr and author of Please Don't Eat the Daisies), there was Peg Bracken of the I Hate to Cook cookbook. (Great recipe for oatmeal cookies but most of the other recipes are ...let's just say the title is not a joke.)

And then there was Erma Bombeck, whose obituaries described her as a "housewife humorist" when she died in 1996 at the age of 69.

Doesn't that sound ... dismissive? The "housewife humorist" had an audience of 30 million readers in 900 newspapers in North America. From 1965 until her death, she wrote more than 4000 newspaper columns. Every once in awhile when I'm looking for a recipe in one of my mother's cookbooks, I'll find a Bombeck column that she cut out and used as a bookmark. They always make me smile. "Housewife humorist?" I guess people need their labels. But she was no hobbyist proto-mommy blogger, the lady could write.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.--Erma Bombeck (See more quotes here.)

Billy Bishop Goes to War--the Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:28:00 +0000

One of the best experiences I ever had at the theater was at the Mark Taper Forum in L.A. where John Gray and Eric Peterson performed their play, Billy Bishop Goes to War. (It won the L.A. Drama Desk Award.)
Billy Bishop Goes to War is a musical based on the life of Canada's WWI flying ace, Billy Bishop of Owen Sound, Ontario. Peterson, one of Canada's best-known actors, played Bishop and a host of other characters, zipping in and out of the roles with the ease of changing a prop. It was an amazing show. I've since seen it performed in other venues, by other actors, including, David Ogden Stiers (of M*A*S*H). He was so physically different from Peterson (tall, robust, balding compared to Peterson's slight, wiry frame and red hair) that it was strange at first but it was also an excellent performance.
Gray and Peterson have been performing the play for 30 years and now they've re-imagined it, tailoring the title character to Peterson's real age. They've also filmed it. It was supposed to be released on DVD last November, but if you search for it, all you find is a paperback copy of the play. You can watch the trailer here. You can buy a copy of the play here. I am going to track down the movie.

Richard Godwin interviews me

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:13:00 +0000

Richard Godwin, author of Mr. Glamour and Apostle Rising, as well as many, many short stories (including "Getting High on Daisy" in the Drunk on the Moon anthology) has interviewed me on his "Chin-Wag at the Slaughterhouse" blog. We talk noir, Joseph Conrad, what scares us and more. You can read it here.

It's Here--Drunk on the Moon!

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:32:00 +0000

Drunk on the Moon, the anthology of stories based on the werewolf/private investigator character created by Paul D. Brazill is now available at Amazon and OmniLit. (It'll soon be available in other stores, including B&N, but they take longer to publish.) This is the e-pub version. The print version will be out early in May.
There are 11 stories in all--including a prequel by Brazill, and the stories were gathered from an international group of writers--Julia Madeleine, John Donald Carlucci, Richard Godwin, K.A. Laity, B.R. Stateham, Paul D. Brazill, Jason Michel, Frank Duffry, Allan Leverone, and me!!
My story, "A Fire in the Blood" features Roman facing off against a Persian fire demoness with the help of another wolf and a mysterious freelance pharmacist.
The stories offer a little something for everyone, and shortly there will be blurbs, including a lovely review from Les Edgerton. The book is $2.99 and well worth it.

Seriously?

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:10:00 +0000

According to Blogger stats, the second biggest source of traffic to this blog is a site called Americans Who Hate Obama. WTH? Not sure what anyone who is on that site could possibly see on my site that says we'd be kindred spirits.

Feminist Fiction Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:33:00 +0000

It is Feminist Fiction Friday and I'm fried. I am in week three of the computer changeover from HELLLLLL and last night it took a new and even more annoying turn as we switched over from the Google Cloud to the Microsoft Cloud. Only one of my email addresses works, and it's not the one I use for business. Only one computer (the new one) is linked to the printer but that printer doesn't have word installed at the moment since we were going to try Google Docs. Grrrr.
So I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself. And then I read about Musine Kokalari. She was an Albanian writer (the first female Albanian writer) who was persecuted after the Communists took over in her country, imprisoned for 18 years, prohibited from writing after that and died in poverty in 1983 after being forced to work as a street sweeper. According to Wikipedia, when she was terminally ill with cancer, she was refused a hospital bed.It's really hard to find any of her work. Her novel Vepra is available from an amazon affiliate seller for $39.

Resources on Women Writers::

Women Writers Online--the excellent project housed at Brown University. Check it out here.
Emory Women Writers Resource Project. Info is here.

Knit Your Own Cat!

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:23:00 +0000

You know, my sister knew how to knit and crochet but that gene just skipped a generation with me. On the rare occasions I sit down to watch television, I don't feel the need to keep my fingers occupied with knitting needles because they're usually busy conveying food to my mouth.
I'm also not really a whimsical person. Yes, I once bought a cement Statue of Liberty for the garden in back of the house I was living in (it was taller than I was and awesome), but it's not like I inflicted my whimsy on passersby, the way I would have if I'd put out a pair of pink flamingos for example.
And yet, when I saw this book, i found myself wishing that I could actually knit because this is the kind of whimsy that tickles my fancy. (I actually thought it was going to turn out to be a self-help book or something, like the screenwriting manual Save the Cat.)
Knit Your Own Cat. Own the whimsy.

What I'll Be Reading Next: I Am an Executioner

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:30:00 +0000

I ran across an interview with writer Rajesh Parameswaran here, and found myself wishing I could have been at the release party for his collection of short stories, I Am an Executioner. It's one of those books where the publisher has priced the Kindle edition ($12.99) at just four dollars less than the hard cover ($16.99), but from what I've read, the book is clearly the harbinger of a brilliant new talent. I can't wait to read it.

I will make wine of your blood

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:12:00 +0000

Photograph by Roger Kirby

Sometimes, short stories insinuate themselves into my work hours, even when I'm completely engaged in an activity (in this case, reading Paul Tobin's fantastic novel Prepare to Die (it'll be out June 5 and if you love great writing, superheroes, love stories or any combination thereof, you will want to buy it).

I kept thinking of Zora Neale Hurston's quote about gods and their worship. Here's the quote:

“All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”

And then I started thinking about a goblin character I've been playing with, a bad-ass gangster goblin who vows vengeance on a rival. And then I started thinking about the ridiculous but oh so quotable movie line, "I will drink your milkshake."

And then I came up with the line, "I will make wine of your blood." I am not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I know there's a story there.

Saturday Self-Promotion: Four Birds Calling

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 06:25:00 +0000

Photo by Dave Di Biase

I have a ton of deadlines coming down the road in the next two weeks--the release of the Drunk on the Moon anthology, the 5K short story "Broken Angel" for Italian publisher Lorenzo Mazzoni, a couple of book reviews, my submission to Pulp Ink 2. And the annual deluge of scripts to prep clients for the Cannes film festival is just around the corner too. And in there I'm working on Misbegotten and my shared world project Starcaster. And while all this is going on, I'm putting together the sequel to my Christmas collection, tentatively entitled 12 More Nights of Christmas. The original collection came out right before the holidays last year and although I think it's a strong bunch of stories, it hasn't really sold well. So all new stories themed to the dark side of the Christmas song--stories of leaping lords and bioengineered partridges and tainted milk sold by a soulless agribusiness company.
Here's a story from the original collection:

Four Birds Calling

Reg could see the two birds out of the corner of his eye. They were looking at him and giggling, being none too subtle about it.

He knew what they were thinking.

Is it him?

Could it be?

The resemblance really was quite striking. He had the same blond mop-top, the same bedroom eyes, the same succulent lower lip.

He even styled his wardrobe after Thomas, the photographer his doppelganger had played in Blow-Up. The white pants and powder-blue shirt rolled up to the elbows. It was a good look for him.

The shirt matched his eyes.

And eyes are the windows of the soul.

Reg never looked birds in the eye though; he always focused on their lips. Eventually they’d notice and ask, “What?”

He’d always say, “You have the most beautiful lips.”

It worked a treat, that line.

Is it him?

Could it be?

He glanced over at the girls and flashed his second-best smile at them, which was enough to make the fat one blush but the spotty one looked back at him boldly and licked her lips while making intense eye contact.

Well hello, Reg thought.

Her name was Rose and her fat friend was named Daisy and the fat girl giggled when he talked about ploughing a flower garden and they both came back to his flat and stayed the weekend.

The fat girl had no stamina but Rose was a fucking machine, pumping out orgasms faster than he could pump out spunk.

On Sunday the fat girl went out to church and didn’t come back but Rose stayed until Monday morning, then returned that night with a train case and some really fine hash.

This was inconvenient for Reg because he’d planned to meet Penelope at the Scene for a night of dancing fueled by purple hearts and alcohol and sex after but he figured a bird in the bed was worth two somewhere else.

The phone rang while Reg was in the shower, so Rose answered it.

She listened for a minute then said, “Don’t call here again,” and slammed the receiver down.

“Who was it love?” Reg asked.

“Some stuck-up slapper named Penelope,” Rose said darkly. “She won’t bother you again.”

That’s a shame, Reg thought.

Sex with Penelope was kinky.

She was a rich girl looking for a bit of rough. She liked being tied to the bed and smacked around, so long as there weren’t any bruises or rope burns her poncey friends might notice.

She liked it when he talked dirty and in return, she’d say the most shocking filth unless he stopped her mouth with a gag. The gag was a turn-on for both of them, her mewling, muffled obscenities giving him a diamond-cutter of a hard-on.

He was going to miss Penelope.

“You won’t miss Penelope,” Rose said.

Within a week, Rose had begun redecorating Reg’s flat, hanging up paintings of soup cans that looked like they’d been torn from magazine adverts, and something she called a “a collage” by an arty tosser named Eduardo Paolozzi. Reg thought they looked like they’d been hauled out of a tip with all sorts of rubbish still stuck on them, but he reckoned she knew more about art than he did.

Rose was a smart girl but she couldn’t cook at all.

Reg was inhaling some fish fingers and mash before they headed out to the cinema—he wanted to see Lord Love a Duck and she wanted to see La Guerre est finie, which she said was a masterpiece—when the phone rang.

Rose picked it up, listened for a moment, then barked out, “Who is this?”

There was a pause and then she said, “Don’t call again.”

As she banged down the phone, Reg raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

“Some tart calling herself Trish,” Rose said.

Trish, Reg thought fondly.

Trish was totally fucking barmy but a good time. They’d had it off in the tube one time and had finished just as they reached King’s Cross Station. Everyone else in the carriage had averted their eyes but no one got up to move.

He was going to miss Trish.

“You won’t miss Trish,” Rose said, and surprised him by agreeing to see the Tuesday Weld movie.

A month after moving in, Rose was trying on wedding gowns. Reg was alarmed because he had not, as yet, proposed to her.

When she returned from a family visit wearing a large diamond ring, Reg was genuinely alarmed.

The ring, she told him, was a gift from her Uncle George and added that he was anxious to meet Reg, the man who was going to “make an honest woman” of her.

Reg was aghast.

Rose was oblivious.

“His local’s the Blind Beggar,” she said. “We can stop there for a bit on Wednesday.”

“Wednesday?” Reg repeated numbly. “What’s the date?”

“The ninth,” she said, “of March,” she added crossly. “What do you care? It’s not as if you have a business meeting that day.”

Reg was about to reply smartly when the phone rang.

He tried to grab it but Rose was too fast.

“Yes?” she said into the receiver and listened briefly.

“Don’t call here again,” she said.

Reg didn’t dare ask her who had called but as Rose left the room she tossed the name over her shoulder.

“Angel.”

Angel.

She was a golden girl, an American blonde from California, as free with her body as she was with her opinions. Her favourite book was On the Road, and she claimed to have met Jack Kerouac in a bar one night when he was so drunk he was rambling in French.

He would miss Angel.

Reg and Rose had their drink with her Uncle George Cornell and left the Blind Beggar not two minutes before Ronnie Kray swaggered in and shot George to death. The press played it up as a gangland rivalry but in truth George was doomed the minute he called Ronnie “a fat poof.”

Reg was horrified but Rose took it in stride.

“It’s the way it is, Reg,” she said.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“Hard cheese,” she said.

“And by the way,” she added, “I’m up the duff.”
The wedding was a small affair considering the recent death of Rose’s uncle. Daisy was Rose’s bridesmaid, stuffed like a sausage into an unappealing yellow frock that did nothing for her complexion.

After the wedding, Reg moved with Rose into a house her father paid for. “Nothing’s too good for my little girl,” Reg’s new father-in-law announced. “I can’t have her living in some grotty council flat, can I?”

Reg had smiled bravely but hadn’t answered.

He knew a rhetorical question when he heard it.

Their new telephone number was ex-directory but somehow Evelyn got hold of it and rang one night when Rose was sleeping.

They talked for quite a long time and Reg agreed to meet her the following day.

“Who were you talking to?” Rose asked sleepily when Reg came into their bedroom.

“Me mum,” Reg said.

“I didn’t know your parents were on the telephone,” she said, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Reg slipped out after breakfast, telling Rose he needed to buy a packet of fags. He met Evelyn outside of Sally Tuffin’s boutique on Carnaby Street.

She looked delicious wrapped in a white Mary Quant coat with lace-up boots.

There wasn’t time for anything more than sharing a coffee, but Reg made plans to meet Evelyn again.

He arrived home with a story of meeting a mate at the tobacco shop and having a bit of a chin-wag.

Rose listened to his excuse and smiled down at her bump instead of at him.

“Daddy is a silly man, isn’t he?” she cooed. “Such a silly silly man.”

She glanced up at Reg and her eyes were pools of ink.

“You won’t miss Evelyn,” she said.

And that’s when he noticed her hands were covered in blood.

Free books--offer good just for today!

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:24:00 +0000

There's a kindle promotion going on for today, Friday the 13th. A hundred books in genres from cookbooks to supernatural romance. A little something for everyone. And free:

100 FREE BOOKS - April 13th #Kindle #Book Bonanza - All Genres - All FREE - http://bitly.com/Ii3hjO

Friday Fantasy Fiction--Review of Brent Weeks' Way of Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 04:21:00 +0000

I used to read a LOT of fantasy in my teens and twenties and I hoovered through all the multi-book sagas and story cycles out there. I was a big fan of Susan Cooper's books, and Guy Gavriel Kay and the Deryni Chronicles. I especially loved Robin McKinley's Beauty and Patricia McKillip's novels. And Anne McCaffrey--loved the Dragonriders series. Somewhere along the way, though, all the books started to feel the same. Maybe it was because a client hired me to read all five thousand Dragonlance books and synopsize them. Whatever it was, I pretty much stopped reading the genre for years. And then I read Brent Weeks' Night Angel: The Way of Shadows. The timing was perfect. I'd just geeked out on the first season of Game of Thrones and was ready for something complex and compelling to get me through to the second season. (I made the decision not to read the books because I don't want to know what's coming. If I'd known what was going to happen to Ned Stark, I'm not sure I could have watched.)
I thought Night Angel was fantastic and was very happy to discover that ... there are more books in the series. In fact, the complete trilogy is now available. If you love densely plotted stories of fantasy, you will love this series. Here's my review:

Night Angel: Way of the Shadows is a richly textured, multi-layered fantasy crowded with characters who have substance and cast shadows. It is a coming of age story played out against a backdrop of politics and magic, The first of Brent Weeks’ epic story cycle, it compares favorably to George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Fire and Ice” books in terms of complexity and world-building.

The relationship between an orphan “guild rat” and a master assassin named Durzo Blint is at the heart of the story, but both Durzo and the boy have lives that connect to a web of other people. Durzo warns his apprentice that “love is a noose,” but by the time they meet, it’s already too late for the boy to heed the warning.

This is an epic story filled with darkness and cruelty but also stuffed with terrific characters, great friendships, large themes and genuine emotion. The early chapters are especially grim, and almost unbearable at times, but also familiar to us—the fantastical extension of Dickens’ version of poverty. This world is not sentimental and those who escape the pull of the Warrens are grateful for their reprieve.

The world-building here is outstanding, on a par with Frank Herbert’s Dune or J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, or the afore-mentioned George R. R. Martin’s Seven Kingdoms. There is very real magic here, with “talents” that range across many different disciplines and mages that must hide their magic. There are places where a fan of the genre can almost identify the author’s influences (because they’re the classic books every fan has read) and he hits all the tropes and memes out there. Which is not a bad thing.

This is a “Chosen One” story, filled with humble beginnings and magical artifacts, and impossible loves, and politics both personal and grand. The chance for betrayal is everywhere and not necessarily because those doing the betraying are traitors.

The characters here are richly dimensional and both men and women are heroes and villains. Some are even both. And unlike a lot of fantasies where even the magical creatures all seem to be white and blonde, there are characters with darker skins (like Jarl) and ambiguous sexuality. Women are just as likely to run things in this book as men, and no aspect of society is denied them.

There are families by birth and blood but also by necessity (like Jarl, Doll Girl, and Azoth). Durzo lives by the concept that “love is a noose” and yet he loves his apprentice and allows the king to manipulate him in order to protect his daughter.

The politics of the backdrop are convoluted in the way that actual politics are convoluted. The identity of the Shinga—the one who controls the criminal network that dominates the realm—is a true revelation and comes out of nowhere the way a good secret should.

Bad things happen to good people. Little children are mutilated, good women are murdered, people die and are hurt and are ruined. And yet, nothing feels gratuitous.

There is sex and there is death and there are magic swords and mad Godkings and well, just about everything you might want in a fantasy.

And when you’re through—there are more books to read.

Gender Analyzer--via K. A. Laity

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine Tomlinson) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:23:00 +0000

So the debate about whether women can write crime fiction has flared up again with interesting posts from Sandra Seamans, Heath Lowrance, and Cat Valente. In response to Heath's post, "Chicks Can't Write Crime Fiction"(which is NOT his position at all), K.A. Laity, who writes crime, horror and romance, shared a link to the site Gender Analyzer, which uses AI to determine if a woman or man wrote the home page of a site. I ran this blog through it and GA suggests, with 77 percent certainty, that a woman wrote it. They're also 88 percent sure that a man writes NoHo Noir. (And I guess, to be fair, they'd be right about 50 percent of the time since I share posting duties with Mark Satchwill.) Running material through the analyzer is addictive and, may I add, a most excellent way of procrastinating.
If you're still on the fence about whether women can bring the hard-boiled, you need to do some reading. Heath's post and the comments will give you a reading list.