Category: Blog

Yeah, I’m rereading Creatures of Light and Darkness (by Roger Zelazny, for the six people on the planet who have never heard of the novel), and finding it Even Better than I recall.  Which is tough, because I already thought it was a masterwork.*

I very much fear that this will lead to a reread of Lord of Light (also by Roger Zelazny, which ought to go without saying).

Well.  It could be worse.

I may have neglected to report the arrival of a Rather Large box filled with paper.  We’re to sign the papers, which will then be bound into the signed editions of Trade Secret.  I’m a little anxious about this box.  We were only to receive, according to our last communication with the Baen Managing Editor, 1,000 pages.  This looks to be. . .Rather More. . .than 1,000 sheets, and of course the cover letter, telling us where to FedEx them when signed, makes no mention of how many pages are under cover.

I guess I’ll spend part of my day counting pages.  It’s not that I grudge the work; but I am protective of my hands.

Edited to add:  That would be 6,500 sheets of paper.  No wonder it looked like a lot.

Also on today’s duty roster is laundry, which I seem to have missed doing last week, in-between Whiskers and putting together various chapbooks; and “The Wolf’s Bride,” which is coming along nicely, if I do say myself.

* * *

Progress on “The Wolf’s Bride”

713/5000 OR 14.26% complete

The dogs of the village knew him; and he passed without challenge from forest edge to market street, walking with a predator’s sure, silent tread down the moss-lined way.

 Above, the night-time sky was a velvet stole, across which a handful of jewels had been scattered, winking in bright hues of gold, and green, and blue. It was silent in the darkness, as it never was in the day, when the merrybells sang the sun’s praises. His bones told him that it was mid-night, and he lengthened his stride, then breathed a laugh at his own foolishness.

————

*the title is the beginning of a poem included in Creatures of Light and Darkness purportedly written by the mad poet Vramin.  The entire poem is thus (with apologies to the spacing):

Oh the moon comes like a genie
from the Negro lamp of night,
and the tunnel of my seeing is her roadway.
She raises up the carpet of the days
I’ve walked upon,
and through caverns of the sky we make  our pathway

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So yesterday, I finished “The Gift of Music,” for Andy LaPierre, who y’all will have the pleasure of meeting next year some time.  I seriously have no idea what to do with the story, and said so to Steve, after he read it last night.

“Why not try to sell it?”  he asked.

Which is — wow.  What an idea.  I don’t remember the last time I submitted a story, cold.  Somewhere in the last decade or more it became clear that I wasn’t writing commercially viable short fiction and I just stopped submitting stories.  I didn’t stop writing stories, because…well.  But I did stop submitting.

We did the chapbooks, and of course there’s Splinter Universe (which I fear may not be a viable “market” for this story until sometime next year).

Anyhow, I’ll think about that. . .a little later.  Today, I have a pile of chores before me, having chosen to devote yesterday to getting Andy out of my head.  I also have a full-blown summer cold, and all I really want to do is lie on the couch and watch endless episodes of “Maverick.”

Or maybe not.

Before I vanish into the Land of Chores, though…I don’t know how many of you follow Ursula Vernon’s blog, where, a couple days ago, she was ruminating on the lack of less-than-bright protagonists in fiction.  Here’s the post. Which I read with interest.  Ursula identifies three “stupid” leads in her post — Buttercup from The Princess Bride, Bertie Wooster from the Jeeves and Wooster novels, and Freddy, from Cotillion — and wonders why there are no others.

Now, after ‘way too much thought, it occurred to me that all three of the characters Ursula identifies are comic characters — The Princess Bride is, after all, a farce; the Jeeves books never pretend to be anything but broad comedy; and Cotillion is definitely one of Heyer’s lighter works (though I must go on record as being at Freddy’s feet).

So, here are my questions:  (1) Can you (yes, you) think of any non-comic novels in which the main character is not extremely bright, or gifted in some manner that makes intelligence into a non-issue?  (2) Do you feel a lack of, in Ursula’s phrase, “good stupid characters” in fiction?

Have at it.

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