Hello, friends!

The Failed Technomancer, chapter 10, has been posted!

I’m a little late today because my wife and I drove down to our condo to put some work into it to prepare it for sale. She put a few hours into deep cleaning, I put a few hours into reflooring, and then we had lunch with some friends… What followed was the really interesting part of the day, which is where I tried to teach said friends how to drive stick shift.

Everyone survived. Including the car. And, hopefully, they remember everything they learned when they go on a vacation to France—where the most affordable rental cars they could find were all stick shifts. (No one ever tells you that French vacations are still a valid reason to learn manual, but it’s true.)

As a random side note, apparently basically only the UK has left-side driving, at least in European parts. Pardon my ignorance, but I once thought that all of Europe drove left-side, and it blew my mind to discover otherwise. (I’ve never actually driven in the UK, but I did live in Jamaica for a few years and drove there. That island is left-side driving, but I think that’s the result of British rule.)

Bloggyness Followup: Starfish

Least week I talked about Starfish (Peter Watts), and my review wasn’t particularly glowing. I thought it interesting that shortly after I published my review I found an article (that I regrettably didn’t save, so I don’t have a link) that talked all about Starfish, and I wanted to respond to some points I really liked and others I disagreed with.

One of my biggest criticisms of Starfish was how misanthropic it was; I felt the way the book focused on the absolute worst and least-likable (or redeemable) of humanity went against the grain of a “Save the planet to prevent human extinction” plot. A big counter-point that this article made, that I thought was very fair, was that Peter Watts sometimes does an excellent job at humanizing the inhuman in a lot of his writing (including in Starfish). There are characters in this book that are awful humans (and fully deserve the fates that come to them), but you still get the chance to emphasize with them and understand what makes them tic (even if that doesn’t redeem them); there are other characters that are horribly unlikable, but once you learn why they are that way (abuse, largely), you learn to see past the shell and get a peek at the wounded, angry child inside and just want to see them healed. I think it is a marvelous, admirable thing when any artist manages to get you to catch a glimpse of the “other” and maybe understand it a little, and that is at times accomplished in Starfish.

However, I think the article misses a step when it suggests that these outcasts are ultimately all the hope in humanity that Watts needs to provide for us. The argument is that these broken people reach out to each other, learn to connect and get along, and band together against outside forces, and that’s what justifies the human element of the book. Well… I don’t buy it. People might form a tribe when forced into extreme circumstances, but that doesn’t mean that tribalism should be seen as admirable. The lead characters in Starfish still hate the outside world and only look out for themselves (and, to a lesser extent, their tribe), which is more of a basic survival mechanism than any evidence of something truly admirable in their hearts. If any of those people, even for a moment, had overcome their baser, darker instincts to extend a helping hand to someone who might be an enemy, that might be evidence of a deeper human value, but I didn’t really get that out of the book. After all, it ends with the protagonist thinking about how she was going to burn the world down around her when she got the chance.

Bloggyness Review: Sense and Sensibility (1995 film)

I must admit to being culturally in the stone age: I have not finished a single Jane Austen novel. I get too bored. I fully trust the hundreds of recommendations I’ve received that Jane Austen is extraordinary in not just being foundational for the Regency romance genre, but also being among a small class of authors whose works hold up as well (or even better) today than decades or even centuries ago, despite the movement of the genre’s conversation since then. I also fully believe all I’ve been told about how the best emotional education one can ever receive will be found in Austen’s novels. The books just aren’t for me—I’d rather read The Hobbit.

Well, my wife and mother refused to accept my cultural illiteracy and lured me into watching the 1995 Sense and Sensibility film with the promise of getting to see the late, great Alan Rickman be a world-class gentleman. (I’d be hard-pressed to find a good reason not to watch anything with Rickman in it.) You know what? Speaking as a guy whose favorite movie of all time might be Mad Max: Fury Road… I really liked it. I was disappointed that there was far less Rickman than I wanted but I was also pleasantly surprised by a hilarious Hugo Weaving, who I also wished showed up much more. I somehow largely kept up with with the subtleties and subtext going on, but I think the real praise in that regard goes to stand-out performances from, among others, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Some scenes I could read an entire chapter just on one facial expression alone. Delicious acting.

So, yes, 10/10, would recommend.

(The only other Austen adaptation I’ve watched prior to this was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies… First half of that movie was delightful, the second half was undead, but not in a good way. It doesn’t hold a candle to this movie, either way.)

(Not Austen, and probably not well-related to the topic at hand, but I loved The Importance of Being Earnest, and would highly recommend it. Just thought I’d sneak that in there.)

Writing Updates

I’ve managed to whittle The Courage in a Small Heart down from just under 19000 words to about 17800. I will be very nearly at 17000 words after I remove one or two scenes that probably aren’t necessary, but I’ve decided to refrain from those cuts until after my writing group has finished reading through the whole short story.

Beyond that, my eventual article on language creation should get finished and posted on Things to Read this week. Should. It’s a bit of a beast, but for the niche audience looking both to write a novel and create a conlang for it I think the wait will be very worthwhile.

No updates on The Betrayed Technomancer or Inner Demon—meaning, nothing has changed for those two novels, so far as I am aware. The Betrayed Technomancer has been cast back into the boiling cauldron that is my deeper consciousness, while Inner Demon is sitting in a Baen slush pile and likely will be until early next year.

Finally, some TTRPG freelancing of mine paid off with publication in EnWorld’s Gate Pass Gazette, issue 20—if you are familiar with Level Up (or Dungeons and Dragons 5e), I wrote some new Warlock material, two new pact options and generous handful of invocations. Per the usual, their editorial team has some heavy fingerprints all over the piece, but the spirit of it is still my original writing. (I was paid a one-time fee for writing the article, so going out and buying it won’t support me directly, but it is fun to share this little tidbit.)

Send-Off—and Sample Scene!

First off: are you an Austen fan? What are your favorite stories, and why? (No need to limit yourself to books—if you have a specific version of Pride and Prejudice that is your favorite, tell us why it’s the Colin Firth version, please.)

Anyway, I had a lot of fun sharing a sample scene last week, so I decided to do it again this week. Reminder: this is still an early draft. There are probably errors below, maybe spelling or grammar, and this scene may or may not exist in the final product. Have fun!

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Their intended shelter was a hollow underneath a knot of mossy roots. The tree above had deeply pitted bark—it made Thistle think of her home, and how easy it was to climb within it to reach the various nests of woven grass that craemus loved. The hollow itself appeared to be deep and widened out not long after its entrance. It would be comfortable, and Thistle looked forward to rest after a long night of hiking.

Pebble didn’t lead her band directly inside. They first stopped within a bush densely covered in thick leaves with pointed edges. The regular mus struggled a little to get in, complaining about getting jabbed, but Thistle easily slipped between the leaves and waited near the bush’s base. There were unexpected advantages to being small; then again, Pebble had no issue getting in either, shoving her way through the foliage, apparently unaffected by the sharp leaves. There were obvious advantages to being large. The bloodskræcher followed close behind her, protected by her bulk, then began scratching around at the base of the bush. With a deep hood pulled over his head, Thistle had a hard time observing more than his pink, twitchy nose; she thought it very odd that a mouse would wear so much. The bloodskræcher that had healed her hadn’t dressed so strangely, but she was too timid to satiate her curiosity.

A pawful of mice were sent ahead. Ears alert, noses sniffing, spears held before them, they crept forward into the hollow and disappeared from view. A few minutes later they returned, three holding up spears with twitching brown spiders stuck to their ends, each one’s body as large as Thistle’s head; the fourth had armfuls of blubbery, wriggling things, a pale yellow in color. Thistle’s stomach rumbled when she recognized them.

“Grubs!” the mouse shouted with a grin.

“Quiet!” Pebble snapped. That didn’t diminish the band’s enthusiasm in the slightest, however; many mice rushed forward, hoping to find at least one grub to munch on before they were all claimed or escaped. Most signs of apprehension disappeared as the band wandered into the safety of the hollow. Thistle, Pebble, and the average mouse took the rear; before they all disappeared underground, Pebble stopped one last time, tripoded on her back paws and the base of her tail, and looked around. She snorted and ducked inside.

The average mouse approached Thistle again. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

Thistle had only been introduced to her new band once, briefly, before they had hurried out of Whiskerroot. She’d been given all of their names, but the fear that had clouded her mind since stepping foot outside of the land she knew had made them difficult to remember. Now that she was more comfortable, memory of this mouse returned: Twitch. His name was Twitch.

She said, “I’m not going to complain about food and some shelter.”

Twitch hummed pleasantly. “Me too!” He looked around the hollow and grinned. “No sleeping tails-to-whiskers tonight!”

Thistle wasn’t as excited. She was used to sleeping in a tight bunch with her brothers, sisters, and mother; watching mice scratch out solitary spots on the ground and drop their burdens with a relieved sigh left her feeling lonely. Was this what it would be like as a Sharptooth? Alone, even in a crowd? Perhaps she had made a mistake.

Thistle shook her head. No—she couldn’t let herself think that. She needed this. She was tired of always feeling so afraid, even of other mice.

Twitch wandered off and began scratching out a spot near the hollow’s edge, where fibrous tendrils from nearby roots made the ground springy and soft. Thistle followed him, hesitantly, and stood nearby, not quite looking at him. After a minute, Twitch looked up and said, “You can nest by me, if you want.”

“Thank you,” Thistle said. She untied her back-bag with her tail[1] and slid it to the ground, then placed her two spears on top of it, her cloak on top of them. She left her belt and pouch around her waist.

“We’re probably not going to see that cat, you know,” Twitch said. “I mean, if we do, we’ll have to be cautious—leading terrible beasts away from the great nest and then losing them is no easy feat. But they also move around a lot on their own. Most of the time they wander off and we come back home with our pouches full of mushrooms and seeds, nothing more.”

“A cat can disembowel a mouse with one swipe, send him flying to break against a tree at the same time,” a nearby mouse said. His name was Clearwater; his fur was mottled brown and grey.

“Crunch your entire body without a thought; little more than a snack,” another mouse growled—Bramble.

Thistle began to shake and curl in on herself. “OOOOoooooohhhhh…”

“Lay off her!” Twitch said, nose keeping his namesake as he glared at Clearwater and Bramble. “She doesn’t understand that you’re joking around.”

Clearwater laughed, but Bramble’s short, wide ears were pulled back against his head. He said, “Only half-joking. She ought to know that most of the Sharpteeth who die are the new ones—survive two or three outings and you’ll know everything you need to if you want to keep your tail out of something’s belly. That’s not to scare her—if she’s smart, that will keep her careful.” He gave Thistle an appraising look. “Then again, if she’s too scared to take care of herself, it might not matter anyway.” Bramble shrugged, then he and Clearwater wandered off toward where the grubs had been found.

“Don’t listen to them—hey! It’s all right. I’m on my third outing and haven’t seen any real danger,” Twitch said, but Thistle was past hearing. She’d never seen a cat before, but she’d heard stories—and the vicious teeth at the end of her spears were more than enough to invite visions of a terrible creature, as tall as the trees and mostly made of teeth and claws, like a mountainous mouse but with a shorter face and tail furred like a squirrel’s.

Twitch hummed thoughtfully, then curled up next to Thistle and pressed his side against hers; Thistle leaned into him, feeling her anxiety still for just a moment.

Pebble and most of the other mice were eating, some with a grub in each paw and alternating juicy bites. They chatted as they relaxed, clearly winding down before preparing to sleep. Thistle’s eyes widened when she saw the bloodskræcher; he was standing in front of a ring of stones with dried sap at its center. He reached into a pouch at his waist, pulled out a pawful of rust-colored powder, and tossed it on the sap, then began scratching symbols in it. Soon the powder—dried blood, Thistle knew—was smoking, and then the sap burst alight. The bloodskræcher huddled in front of the fire, rubbing his paws; when a mouse handed him a grub, he stuck it on the end of a spear and held it over the flames. Thistle shrank into herself more.

“You don’t like fire?” Twitch asked.

“It’s the reason—Halfwhisker, my name,” Thistle said. She forced herself to ignore the bloodskræcher’s fire and focus on breathing; she wasn’t anywhere close to it. It couldn’t hurt her. This was part of the reason she had become a Sharptooth anyway: she needed to stop being so afraid.

If only it were that easy.

“I don’t like it either. But I understand why he uses it. He’s an acomus—they’re always cold. Something about the air. Now, what I really don’t get is why he’s cooking[2] the grub. Drying food for winter storage is one thing, but cooking it just to turn around and eat it?”

“M-maybe he likes the texture,” Thistle said. She had to force the words out, but talking helped her relax a little more.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Twitch didn’t sound convinced. “I’m going to go get us some food before it’s all gone—I’ll be back.”

He pushed himself to his back paws and walked off; a few minutes later he was settled beside Thistle again, a grub and some spider legs in front of both of them. Thistle started nibbling on the spider legs first; she didn’t like how spiders crunched, so she wanted to get them out of the way.

“Why’d you join the Sharpteeth anyway? I heard craemus that don’t choose their own way prefer Bellystretchers, maybe Paw and Claw,” Twitch asked between bites.

Pebble stomped by, seemingly unstoppable as a rock rolling down a hill; mice moved out of her path, rather than the other way around. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Thistle whispered.

Sensing something in her tone, Twitch nodded and was quiet. Shortly after, Clearwater and Bramble approached. Clearwater cleared his throat and said, “Uh, sorry for the joking around earlier. Didn’t mean anything by it. Just, you know, making light helps some of us feel better.”

Bramble nodded.

“Thank you,” Thistle said. She understood—Fryth had made mice weak, and some would rather laugh about it than fret.

They both nodded awkwardly, looked around, then walked to their things and sat on their haunches, talking quietly with each other as they ate. They had surprised Thistle; she hadn’t expected them to apologize. Then again, she hadn’t expected most of what she’d experienced as a Sharptooth so far.

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[1] Craemus are the only species grouping of mice to have fully prehensile tails. Skopper tails can wrap around branches to hold them in place while climbing, but are not capable of fine manipulation; mus, gorskrmus, and acomus can wag or wriggle their tails and not much more.

[2] This is the closest translation I could find from muris, the mouse language. Most mice don’t cook their food, but any creature that has discovered fire will, at some point, think to stick edible things in it and see if the result is still edible.