20. The Making of a Marchioness, Frances Hodgson Burnett
19. A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
18. Geekomancy, Michael R. Underwood
17. The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
16. The Martian, Andy Weir
15. Blaze of Memory, Nalini Singh
14. Tracker, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
13. Chanur’s Legacy, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
12. Chanur’s Homecoming, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
11. The Kif Strike Back, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
10. Why Kings Confess, C.S. Harris
9. Chanur’s Venture, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve) (Note: the publisher’s note at the end of the book states that the next-in-series is Chanur’s Revenge. This is false. The next-in-series is The Kif Strike Back.)
8. Angels’ Blood, Nalini Singh (read out loud with Steve)
7. The Pride of Chanur, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
6. What Darkness Brings, C.S. Harris
5. When Maidens Mourn, C.S. Harris
4. Where Shadows Dance, C.S. Harris
3. What Remains of Heaven, C.S. Harris
2. Where Serpents Sleep, C.S. Harris
1. When Gods Die, C.S. Harris
Category: Blog
Books read in 2015
19. A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
18. Geekomancy, Michael R. Underwood
17. The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
16. The Martian, Andy Weir
15. Blaze of Memory, Nalini Singh
14. Tracker, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
13. Chanur’s Legacy, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
12. Chanur’s Homecoming, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
11. The Kif Strike Back, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
10. Why Kings Confess, C.S. Harris
9. Chanur’s Venture, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve) (Note: the publisher’s note at the end of the book states that the next-in-series is Chanur’s Revenge. This is false. The next-in-series is The Kif Strike Back.)
8. Angels’ Blood, Nalini Singh (read out loud with Steve)
7. The Pride of Chanur, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
6. What Darkness Brings, C.S. Harris
5. When Maidens Mourn, C.S. Harris
4. Where Shadows Dance, C.S. Harris
3. What Remains of Heaven, C.S. Harris
2. Where Serpents Sleep, C.S. Harris
1. When Gods Die, C.S. Harris
Content!
I’ve added a partial Liaden Universe® dictionary to korval.com. Here’s your link.
The time has probably come when what we Actually Need is a Liaden Universe® Concordance, but! until we can get someone to do that for us (see what I did there?), there is the Liaden Universe® Wiki, currently weighing in at 105 pages of Really Good Stuff, including the names of clans, the names of cats, the names of ships, and onward!
Gentlebeings, start your search engines
There has been a call for a(n updated) Liaden Dictionary. I have located in my files a longish list of words that ought to get us started, but I don’t have context for some of the words, and have come up empty guessing which book they must appear in (or they’re there, but the search engine in my word processor passes them by — this has happened before; the in-Libre search does not like apostrophes interrupting its words).
So!
Who can get me references — that would be book and search phrase — for the following:
a’trezla
balent’i kalandon
balent’i tru’vad
lazenia spandok
lisamia keshoc
palesci modassa
prethliu
tra’sia volectava’netra
Valcon Berant’a
Valcon Melad’a
Thursday at the Cat Farm
Slept late, had a leisurely breakfast with my lovely and talented spouse of many years, finished up such raking as I can do of the pine chips under the deck, sat for a while in the Cat Garden, which came All Over dandelions while we were away and is pretty much going to be Jungle this year, and considered the notion that I need to bury Mozart’s ashes. Came inside and brushed two coon cats, also giving one a front-paws manicure. Sat down at the computer to see what I might like to write next — Steve is lead on The Gathering Edge, since — solely my own fault! — I was lead on Dragon and Alliance. Been thinking about indulging myself with another Archers Beach novel, or maybe finishing up the third book in the mystery trilogy, or, yanno, writing another story about Tommy Lee, since he has at least one, and possibly two, more owed him.
My brain, however, informs me that it’s forgotten how to write.
Well.
This is always a scary event, though it happens — or least, has happened — to me frequently. I’ve always had to have time to recharge after finishing a novel, and both Dragon and Alliance were very difficult books to write, in life situations that were unique, but similarly challenging. Still, yes, scary, because, though my brain has, historically, and eventually, remembered how to write — what if, this time, it doesn’t?
What? I’m a writer; I can find angst in a bowl of corn flakes.
So! Today’s schedule, seeing as there’s no writing getting done at this desk, save a blog post and a couple of outstanding emails, today’s schedule includes going into town to deposit a reimbursement check and pick up whatever the heck prescription CVS is on about, researching local builders of garages, and also home improvement loans. That’ll be fun. For recharge, I’ll spend some time with my current book — A Little Princess, which I somehow have never read, though I’ve probably re-read The Secret Garden at least 50 times. Lovely sentences. Need to figure out how to see some stories, too — so! also today need to research internet streaming services and costs.
That looks like a full day, right there.
What’re you doing that’s fun?
Books read in 2015
18. Geekomancy, Michael R. Underwood
17. The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
16. The Martian, Andy Weir
15. Blaze of Memory, Nalini Singh
14. Tracker, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
13. Chanur’s Legacy, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
12. Chanur’s Homecoming, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
11. The Kif Strike Back, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
10. Why Kings Confess, C.S. Harris
9. Chanur’s Venture, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve) (Note: the publisher’s note at the end of the book states that the next-in-series is Chanur’s Revenge. This is false. The next-in-series is The Kif Strike Back.)
8. Angels’ Blood, Nalini Singh (read out loud with Steve)
7. The Pride of Chanur, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
6. What Darkness Brings, C.S. Harris
5. When Maidens Mourn, C.S. Harris
4. Where Shadows Dance, C.S. Harris
3. What Remains of Heaven, C.S. Harris
2. Where Serpents Sleep, C.S. Harris
1. When Gods Die, C.S. Harris
News and reminders, with bonus glossy ibis
For those who have been waiting for BN to make the Nook edition of Dragon in Exile available: Your patience has been rewarded. Here’s your link to the Nook Edition at BN.
Reminder! Uncle Hugo’s is offering personalized and/or signed copies of A Liaden Universe® Constellation, Volume 3. There is, as usual, a deadline for preorders of the personalized copies, that being Wednesday, July 1. Click this link for table of contents, instructions, and an order form.
We — that’s Sharon Lee and Steve Miller — will be Writer Guests of Honor at RavenCon 2016, joining Vincent diFate as Artist GoH. RavenCon 2016 will be held April 29-May 1, in Williamsburg, which is very cool. It’s been, like, 50 years since I’ve been in Williamsburg. Here’s your link.
We — that’s Steve Miller and Sharon Lee — will ALSO be guests at BaltiCon’s 50th Anniversary Convention, to be held May 27-30, 2016, at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore. Guests of Honor will be George RR Martin, John Picacio, Bill and Gretchen Roper, and Alexandra Duncan. Also present will be as many of Balticon’s past GoHs as can be brought to the event. Lee and Miller were Writer GoHs at Balticon 37, in 2003. Here’s your link.
Also! We expect to be able to point you very soon to a source for Liaden themed clothing. So, yanno: Watch the skies.
For those who have been following the Epic of Selling the House — due to events well beyond our control, we have taken our house off the market. Current plans include having a garage built, to help take some of the pressure off, come winter. Also, we get to put the Yule lights back up in the kitchen.
After Monday’s adventures, we were scheduled to take Kineo in to Charlie’s Subaru for a routine 2,000 mile inspection. Everything was fine, except they had to change an oil filter, and off we went — to the ocean. It was a grey and rainy day, and Old Orchard Beach is still not quite open for bidness. My first choice for lunch — Pirate’s Patio on the beach — was closed. Second choice, the newly formulated Duffy’s Tavern — was having its Grand Opening on Friday. JJ’s Two is our usual fallback position, but Steve pointed out that we had never been to The Clambake, in Pine Point, so that’s where we ate lunch — on the glassed-in back porch, right on the marsh. We were a little behind the usual lunch hour, so practically had the porch to ourselves, and dawdled over lunch and ice tea, watching the birds. Including a bird neither of us had ever seen before — a juvenile glossy ibis. Here are some pictures of a similar bird, spotted at Dunstan’s Landing in 2012.
And that’s all the news that’s fit to print.
Welladay, Monday
One of the best things about freelancing is that you can mostly avoid having Mondays.
Mostly. . .but not always.
So! Today was Monday, here at the Cat Farm, starting right out of the box, when all of us sleepyheads — by which I mean Steve, me, Trooper, and Sprite — were startled from Very Sound Sleeps (and in my case, a Very Intense Dream that I was just as glad to let go, except that I was Deep in Dreamspace, and waking up was — a jolt), by the sound of a knock at the door, at 7:30, which is what counts for early around here. By the time I had surfaced from the dream, the knock had come again, and both cats had leapt up and dashed down the hall, Steve following.
But, there was no one at the door. Careful examination showed that Scrabble had knocked a couple of brushes off the side of the sink in the bathroom. They’d landed on the scale, which is wood-clad.
Knock-knock.
Knock-knock.
Sigh.
None of us was getting back to sleep after that, so to coffee, and an uploading of Chapter Eight of Shan and Priscilla Ride Again (here’s the link, if you missed it), which I did. We then broke our fast and were discussing the proper structure of the day, when the mail arrived, always a moment of Great Excitement at the Cat Farm. I left the kitchen, walked down the drive and across the road to the mailbox, where I gathered to myself a handful of. . .
. . .bills.
More than five hundred dollars in bills, only one of which (the car payment) was anticipated, much less budgeted for — all, save that one, medical bills.
For the sake of moving along the narrative, I omit the plumber’s bill for a heart-stopping sum, which had already been paid, check crossing invoice in the mail.
The surprise bills? All were due “on receipt,” which — never mind. So I wrote checks, and had a panic attack, and a shower, ate the leftover stir-fry Steve provided for lunch, retired to the sofa to read — and got up again to write a check to the guy who mows our lawn — for two weeks, naturally, since he had taken care of us while we were on tour.
Late in the day, a nice thing did happen. More on that as I can.
Oh, and things seem to be moving along in the Great Plan to bring Belle to Maine later this month. Just need to nail down the date and time — that’s good, too.
Things are somewhat calmer now. Steve’s gone to chess; I did the dishes; Trooper and Sprite are with me in my office, napping while I blog. In a bit, I’ll go back to the sofa and my book.
But! Before I do that, I have news of a sort for Nook readers concerning Dragon in Exile, which is — Neither Baen nor BN understands why the Nook edition failed to find its way into the store, and the problem has been bumped Upstairs to the This Really Should’ve Worked Problem Solving Team. More news is expected in two business days. In the meantime, and as always, you may purchase an epub (Nook) edition of DiE — and all of — our published novels directly from Baen. Here’s your link.
Also! For those who appreciate a beautiful instrument, and especially a beautiful keyboard, there’s this.
So — how was your Monday?
Chapter Eight: Shan and Priscilla Ride Again
After a week’s absence, the ride has been resumed. Chapter Eight has been posted and awaits your perusal.
Books read in 2015
17. The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
16. The Martian, Andy Weir
15. Blaze of Memory, Nalini Singh
14. Tracker, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
13. Chanur’s Legacy, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
12. Chanur’s Homecoming, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
11. The Kif Strike Back, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
10. Why Kings Confess, C.S. Harris
9. Chanur’s Venture, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve) (Note: the publisher’s note at the end of the book states that the next-in-series is Chanur’s Revenge. This is false. The next-in-series is The Kif Strike Back.)
8. Angels’ Blood, Nalini Singh (read out loud with Steve)
7. The Pride of Chanur, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
6. What Darkness Brings, C.S. Harris
5. When Maidens Mourn, C.S. Harris
4. Where Shadows Dance, C.S. Harris
3. What Remains of Heaven, C.S. Harris
2. Where Serpents Sleep, C.S. Harris
1. When Gods Die, C.S. Harris