Sheila's Guests and Reviews

Today I'm delighted to welcome author Michael Williams to my blog. He's touring the internet with a fascinating quartet of books, but which shelf will you find them on? Michael has generously agreed to help me figure out the shelf, and understand how all those "genres" of my favorite books fit together. Is it  Mythic, magical, realism, horror, urban, fantasy, scifi... or what? So, over to you Michael... All kinds of genres It seems to be the fate of academics to explain jokes and create categories.  You asked an interesting question, though: Mythic, magical, realism, horror, urban, fantasy, scifi…how do they all fit together?  I’ll try a version of an answer, though it’s incomplete and a little indirect. I guess it comes down to the places where these definitions are needed or convenient.  American booksellers like the categories—all kinds of genres—as a device for marketing, and academics like them to help focus students on the qualities of non-realist fictio...

Looking through those unpublished book reviews and unshelved but long-read books I found an Obsidian Trilogy and an Obsidian short story collection. It's definitely time to shelve them--the trilogy, in particular, is made up of quite large books and if I don't put them away the space will disappear. (Space does that--quantum book expansion I think.) So... I'll start with the short stories. Obsidian Worlds by Jason Werbeloff  is a fascinating collection, not for the easily offended, but uniquely odd, short enough to read while drinking coffee, and weird enough to have you reaching for your science book. Enjoy with some dark five-star coffee. Then there's the Obsidian Trilogy. Here, magic replaces science, but it's a well-thought-out kind of magic with genuine logic and fascinating differences, balanced by a well-developed fantasy world and fueled by good versus evil. I love how new characters and ideas are introduced in each book, extending the world and constant...

My husband used to tell me he only liked "real" science fiction, not that "fantasy" stuff. So it's kind of surprising to find him thoroughly hooked on fantasies like Game of Thrones and Mistborn. But it's satisfying too. It seems what makes fantasy work for him is when it has a well-imagined, logical worldview, when magic obeys its rules rather than making them up to change with the novel's changing needs, and where characters become real and believable rather than cardboard cutouts. That being so, it's not surprising he loves Harry Potter (definitely logical) and Mistborn too. Meanwhile I just love fantasy, always have done and doubtless always will. But what makes it fantasy? Is it magic? Is it different worlds (but surely they're part of science fiction too)? Is it swords and sorcery and dragons? Gods and goddesses? And what makes fantasy different from (hard) science fiction? I suspect for my husband at least, real (hard) science fiction ...

I thought the sun was going to shine today. I saw the flowers in bright colors and wondered if I'd need to water them. Then the skies watered, while smoke covered Paris, and gargoyles looked on; and I cried. Notre Dame is a beautiful cathedral, and its structure still stands, they say. But a church is more than its roofless walls and broken glass. And a building it more than picture postcards with stamps. A magically beautiful place is changed by a horrifying beauty of flames. And a new beauty will arise to fill the old, or so they say. Which has nothing at all to do with writing book reviews though it does make anything so trivial seem even more so, while my fingers ache to click on that internet page with "breaking news" instead of typing words. And the hours go by. Perhaps it's remotely fitting that I'm reviewing books built on magic, telling of worlds where magic's power, like fire's, changes everything. Or perhaps that's a stretch. Still, time...

My world's not feeling as good as it might--job uncertainties, aging, insurance all rearing their heads. So perhaps it's a good time to escape into a strange new world, seek out new lives, new civilizations... or something. Which I suppose answers my question, "Are strange new worlds scary or good," because Star Trek sought out some pleasing ones as well as scary ones. Anyway, many worlds reside in good books, so here are three, all science fiction based, and all truly intriguing. First is Water to Water by Karen Wyle . You can find my reviews of Karen Wyle's earlier novels on Goodreads , and you'll tell from their number and ratings that I love her writing. Water to Water is no exception--a well-imagined alien world with truly alien life-forms, alien culture, and even alien faith. Readers are quickly drawn into lives and questions as a young adult comes to terms with his father's passing. But why do the dead go to the sea? Where do the dead of other s...

I started writing this on a Thursday afternoon. "Tomorrow" I would do the next edits on a book. Tomorrow, the day after, I hoped to play board games with sons. Tomorrow, the day after that, I'd be at church. And tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow... all leading to an uncertain future, globally warmed, socially falling, maybe... So then I stopped and read a science fiction novel, and the possibilities are endless - not all good, but definitely endless. Here are some reviews of the science fiction novels that fill our my tomorrows: With coffee, of course. Primordial Threat by M. A. Rothman is "hard" or classical science fiction, set in the not too distant future. We're colonizing the moon. We're watching the stars. And we're still living in our separate nations, unsure if we're quite safe together when suddenly we find, we'll be even less safe apart. As threat approaches from the sky, a discredited scientist might have to be trusted, a deathl...

My older brother told me that writing stories was the same as telling lies. I was a pretty useless liar at the time, but convinced I was good at telling stories - after all, even said older brother liked my stories some of the time. Having been taught that telling lies is wrong, I struggled for a while to convince myself that telling stories was different. Eventually I concluded it's only a lie if it's intended to deceive. Otherwise it's fictional entertainment (books) or kindness (those gentle untruths that avoid causing pain or giving offense). Meanwhile I continued to read voraciously, never even beginning to imagine that those other writers were "telling lies." After all, they were adults and adults never sin. (Such was my youthful innocence!) The worlds and/or characters of fantasy and science fiction are far enough from our own there can't be any intent to deceive - though sometimes, in urban fantasy perhaps, they're close enough to our own that th...

Today I'm delighted to welcome author Robert Donohue to my blog. His epic fantasy series, Then Came A King, starts with the novel, Child of Creation , and he's been touring the internet, letting readers know more about it. So, fellow readers and writers, find some coffee, maybe a few gluten-free cookies, and meet Robert with me. I know Child of Creation is a fantasy. Is this the only genre  you write, Robert, and if so, why?  I write to relax.  I enjoy reading Epic Fantasy novels and so, my first published book is in that genre.  I grew up reading Louis L’Amour and Clive Cussler though, so I have a desire to try that genre at some point, and I have started about half a dozen times a book about my adventures in Baghdad, Iraq in 2004 when I was there serving as a police advisor helping to stand up a democratic policing presence in a country that had none.  Basically, I just like to write, and the fantasy genre is the most open, allowing me to be the most ...

The future had its bleak turns during my childhood. I wrote stories about the end of the world, where an anonymous someone in Russia, China or the USA pushed a button and blew us all up. I wanted to stand on a tall tower watching the bombs, because I was sure the tower would fall and I wouldn't need to survive the aftermath, and also because I wanted my eyes wide open. But it didn't happen. One of my sons suffers from similarly bleak views today. Meanwhile my mum, who lived through the Second World War in England, has a much more honest view of the past. Her world was threatened dailly. Her disasters appeared on her doorstep and drove her to hide in underground shelters. My disasters and my sons are just in our heads, at least for now. And then there are books. Fiction offers an escape, a place to explore different ways, a chance to see through different eyes, and maybe even an opportunity to realize the end's not today, and the future really hasn't happened yet, so...

As the world around us changes, it's intriguing to read about changed worlds, and to wonder what will be. For me it's particularly intriguing since the books I wrote as a teen all involved drastically changed worlds - perhaps I was writing dystopias before I knew the word. But I was writing as a teen and it's probably just as well those strange tomes never saw light of day, though some of the short stories weren't bad. Anyway, here are some book reviews of tales set in "different" worlds where people are recognizably ourselves, but situations are changed. Grab a coffee and see what you think. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the screenplay by J. K. Rowling , was kind of a must-read, though I haven't yet seen the movie. The Cursed Child was a serious disappointment by comparison. Rowling's screenplay is clean and tight, uses all the right terms (and explains them for the uninformed), and, while not absorbing the reader into characters' i...

When I met the man I would later marry we were both in college. He loaned me his copy of Dune over the Christmas vacation; I suspect he wanted to make sure I'd see him again, if only to return the book. Dune is a great science fiction novel. We both loved the sense of working out how the planet's ecology could evolve, and imagining the mysteries of space travel. But my soon-to-be-husband was much more tied to the science while I loved the characters, the mind-reading, future-sensing aspects of it all. He showed me other books that filled his shelves - all volumes that I would today term "hard sci-fi." Meanwhile my own collection was growing with a Christmas gift of the Lord of the Rings, Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy, and more esoteric offerings my future spouse termed "fantasy." He said "fantasy" in the same way he said, "Oh dear. My sister writes," when I told him I wanted to be an author. Fantasy was most surely not his thing. ...

Today I'm delighted to welcome author E. Chris Garrison to my blog as she tours the internet with her wonderful Tispy Fairy Tales. I gather she's just returned from the Indianapolis Monument Circle of her books, where she met... well, I'll let her tell you... Welcome Chrissy. Having a Brew With a Fantasy Bartender By E. Chris Garrison Sometimes characters become fairly real to an author. We argue with them, trying to forward a plot while the character, in our mind's eye, pouts and stomps their feet, refusing to do as we say because it's not how they would handle the situation we put them in. We spend much mental effort putting ourselves in their places, to keep the characterization authentic and true to the vision we're trying to portray. But they have a way of taking on a life of their own. But some characters spend a lot of time in the background, more or less as plot devices, and it's harder to get to know them. So, I thought I...