Author: Sharon

I am pleased to report that I continue to be a sad trial to the staff at the local jewelry store’s repair counter.  Despite which, I now have a temporary magnetic clasp* on the full-moon necklace Steve gave me for my birthday and can therefore put it on and take it off my own self.

Today, I’ve made one needed phone call; have thus far successfully avoided making the second; printed out a contract, signed it and sealed it into its envelope, and taken a pair of jeans to the local seamstress to have them hemmed (I can’t remember the last time I had to have a pair of pants taken up.  It may actually have been Never.)

Still to do:  that vexed phone call, and a few fixes to “The Gift of Music,” so that it can be sent along to the editor.  Also, Steve and I worked out a short story over breakfast.  Mind you, we very much need to NOT be writing a short story at this particular moment in time, but…you take your fun when it comes, I guess.

For those who indulge, I took the challenge and answered The Usual Questions at Festivale.

A reminder for folks local to Waterville, Maine: Steve and I will be giving a talk tomorrow (Saturday, September 14) at 9:30 a.m. at the Waterville Public Library as part of the festivities attending Cirque du Geek.

And now, I guess I’d better make that blasted phone call.

———-

*Temporary because the goldsmith is on vacation and there is no one else in the store qualified to handle a soldering iron.  So the magnets are attached by rings, but the rings are only pinched shut, not soldered shut.  I’m directed to come back “in a week or two” to have the soldering done.

My goodness; come back to the computer after a quick trip to Rockland, and find that the galaxy is wishing you happy birthday.

Thank you all, very much.

My birthday celebrations started yesterday. Thus are we all ruled by the availability of hotel rooms.  Or, actually, inn rooms.  Steve and I left early, had breakfast at the China Dinah, and proceeded to Camden, Maine.  I’ve (painfully)  driven through Camden many times, but yesterday was the first  time since we moved to Maine that we were able to park the car, and wander around downtown.  In summer, the place is up to the ears in tourist; but now we’re into After Season, when all but the hardiest — or the canniest — tourists have gone back Away and the native Mainers can play tourist in their own state.

If you’re ever in Camden, Maine, go to the Ironbound Gallery; they have beautiful things, including a brand-new carousel horse, hand-carved and painted.  She’d need a room to herself to do the work justice, but she was lovely to look at.

We signed books at Sherman’s, drifted in and out of shops, and galleries, stayed ‘way too long in the leather shop, just wallowing in the smell, bought — and ate! — butterscotch cookies as big as our heads, took a couple pictures, and eventually found the car again and motored down Route 1 to Rockland.

Here’s what Camden Harbor looked like on Tuesday, September 10, 2013:

We had lunch in Rockland at Clan MacClaren, went ’round the corner to the Wine Seller, to pick up a bottle of Good Wine by Joe Pinot Noir, then checked into our room at the Captain Lindsey House.  I had never stayed at an inn and/or bed-and-breakfast, so this was a first.  Our room was Period, built in 1835 by one of the retired sea captains who were Maine’s principal citizens for many years.  Turkey carpets on the floor, a(n electric) fireplace, a four-poster queen bed, and a pretty little sitting area with wing chairs and a marble-topped table.

Foolishly, I did not take a picture of our room, but this is the door into Captain Lindsey’s House:

Later in the evening, we walked out for dinner at the Rustica.  I had the pork; Steve had the cavatelli, and we were both well-pleased.

This morning, after breakfast served by mine host, we walked down to the Rockland Ferry Landing, then uptown, shopping as we went.  When we were shopped out, we came home the long way, stopping in Brunswick at The Great Impasta for lunch (why, yes, I did have two Italian meals in two days.  Your point?)

For my birthday, Steve got me a very nice bottle opener.

Also, the moon:

Now, we’re home, and have made peace with the cats.  Tomorrow, I have some errands to run in town, including seeing if the local jeweler can put a magnetic clasp on my new necklace.  Then, I have a story to go over one more time so it can be sent off to the editor.

Again — thanks to everyone for the well-wishes; they’re much appreciated.

I’m behind on my email — that’s a surprise, I know — so this is kind of a blanket reply to those asking if I’ve seen Amazing Stories, and what I’m going to “do” about it.

The answer to Part One is, Yep, saw it, was annoyed, then baffled, now tired.  (For those who haven’t seen it, have a blast.  Fair warning:  Comments have been closed.)

The answer to Part Two is…Well, what on earth should I “do” about it?  Lots of other people on the internet are being outraged on behalf of Lee and Miller, and Bujold, and Wolfe.

. . .though not so much for Cherie Priest, so I hereby state that I am outraged on behalf of Cherie Priest, whose cover was kind of used as a stand-in for everything that the author of the piece doesn’t like about steampunk.  The off-handedness of it was typical of the whole piece of work, but I’m sorry Cherie was brought into it at all.

And I’m sorry that we were brought into it.  As I said elsewhere, in the author’s view, Lee and Miller have been sinning against the science fiction genre for twenty-five years.  It’s not like our transgressions are new, even if we have just now come to the author’s attention.  He doesn’t like our stuff.  Fine.

And, really, I mean that.  Lots of people don’t like what Steve and I are doing in the Liaden Universe®; that’s life.  I like to think that the people who don’t like what we’re doing have actually read one or two of the books and have thus based their opinions on solid ground, but, really, who am I kidding?

Here’s the thing though:  We all have stupid opinions (no, really, we do); but there are ways to express the stupidest of opinions without starting an internet slap-fight.

I, for instance, hold a stupid opinion with regard to Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles.  I’ll even bore you with it.

The Lymond Chronicles, as I’m told by its fans, are incredible works of fiction that stand the test of time, and many, many re-readings.  Indeed, the Liaden books have often been compared, favorably, to the Lymond novels.  It was assumed by many folks who adore the Chronicles that I must have fixated upon them at an early age, as many readers of Liad had done.

Sadly, this was not — and is not — true.  Nor did I fixate on the Patrick O’Brien books, another common assumption of my reading tastes based upon what I write.

I suppose I ought to confess right now to being a sorry scamp, with no taste for real literature.  During my formative reading years, I ingested every Perry Mason book Earle Stanley Gardner had ever penned, manymany Agatha Christie  mysteries, the works of Frances and Richard Lockridge, Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories, possibly the entire output of Dorothy Eden, Mary Stewart, Elswyth Thane, and Gwen Bristow (I probably read Jubilee Trail fifteen times, I kid you not.  I adored Florinda, the dancer with the facility for re-inventing herself, and her crazy Russian admirer, and every time I read the book I kept hoping more of their story had somehow snuck in).  I read Zane Grey; I read Rex Stout; I read Dorothy Sayers. . .but I didn’t read Dorothy Dunnett.

However, back in the day, a reader was so admiring of the Lymond books, and so insistent that they were “just like Liad,” that I thought, Well, why not?

And took myself to the town library.

Now, the town library did not have the Lymond Chronicles on its shelves. But they did have the complete set of another of Dunnett’s series, the House of Niccolo.

So, I thought, Why not?

And I took out the first couple novels in the series.

Not to put too fine a point on it, and fully realizing that this is not an opinion held by many — I hated them.

I mean, the world-building was fascinating and complete and wow — 1460 Flanders just leapt off the page; I could smell the dye — and the street  — Dunnett was that good.

But her characters?  Them, I loathed.  I spent the last half of the first book hoping Claes would die so I could stop reading about him.  Not an auspicious beginning to an eight-book relationship.  The second book. . .I didn’t finish the second book; the gorgeous worldbuilding wasn’t enough to carry the distasteful characters and the convoluted, self-serving intrigues spun by the hero.

Based on my experience with those two books in the Niccolo series, I predict that I will not like the Lymond Chronicles and I have not sought them out.  I realize that, yes, they are two different series, but I have lost my trust in the author; I do not believe that she will serve me characters that I can relate to, and for me, in terms of reading fiction, that’s a deal-breaker.

So, there’s my stupid opinion:  I will not enjoy reading the Lymond Chronicles.

Now, since this post is about being able to have opinions without offending the earth, I’d like to ask, seriously — does the opinion expressed above offend you?  Note that being of a different opinion is not the same as being offended.

If the above opinion did offend you, can you pinpoint what, precisely, caused that reaction?  Was it the choice of words?  Was it the tone of post?  Both?  Or something else?

Thanks for playing along.