TMI, Mr. Fforde. TMI.

As I type this, I'm about two hours into a 13 hour plane ride. I've achieved the rank of Peggle Master in my latest app obsession, and am working my way through my second tiny bottle of a surprisingly good Pinot Grigio.

Buy from Amazon: First Among Sequels

I'm also working my way through Jasper Fforde's fifth book in his Thursday Next series, "Thursday Next, First Among Sequels". And I'm not particularly happy.

Oh I'm happy about the trip, despite the fact that I'll likely miss my connection flight. And I'm happy that I have a row to myself, nice wine, and the rumble of jet engines to lull me to sleep.

But I'm not happy about the book. I adore Ffforde's writing, I really do. And his stories are amazingly creative, and whimsical, and funny. But having read the first 14 chapters of First Among Sequels, I'm terribly disappointed. It's just one long back story so far, 124 pages whose sole purpose seems to be to catch up the story for new readers.

To make matters worse, the plot devices for revealing said backstory are weak and shallow. In one case, Thursday, a Jurisfiction agent in BookWorld, drones on and on to her cadet trainee: explaining how BookWorld works, taking tours, going on ad nauseum about stuff that was delightfully woven seamlessly into books 1-4. In another case, Thursday takes her son to a ChronoGuard recruiting seminar, where, similarly, a recruiting officer drones on and on about time topics also covered in depth in the earlier books. The only light spot is when her son, Friday, asks, "Is this going to take long?" My thoughts exactly!

Now as an author whose first novel is still very much a work in progress, this has me thinking (or maybe it's the wine): When writing a sequel (or two or three or four), how do you catch up your new readers without boring your loyal followers to death? You can't just pick things up without some sort of transition (or can you?)? But holding the reader captive while lecturing the finer points of earlier novels doesn't work either.

So what then? In the types of writing I do daily – scholarly scientific articles, test plans, project proposals, and the like – there's always a backstory. In some cases, depending on the topic, the foundational work goes back decades, or even centuries. Now most articles in technical journals are dry and dull enough without years upon years of backstory, so deciding which elements to include and how to include them is a sort of art form. Is it necessary to mention the Wright Brothers when developing a new test procedure for jet engines? Probably not. But if adding a new term to an existing equation, discussing the original work is a good idea.

Many authors approach the issue of previous work by just stuffing a few paragraphs into the intro. Something along the lines of: Guy1 did this stuff [see reference 1], guy2 did this other stuff [see reference 2], guy3 did some more stuff [see reference 3], blah, blah, blah until it's practically unreadable.

The better authors, in my opinion, not only weave the past work into appropriate sections of the paper rather than blast the reader with a tally sheet of backstory, but they also include a discussion of how the earlier findings contribute to the current work. 

This approach isn't unique to technical writing. Look at some of the hugely successful sequels, such as the Harry Potter books or the Series of Unfortunate Events or any number of multi-book stories. The best sequels don't bore the reader with in-your-face, not-letting-you-go-until-I've-had-my-say backstory. Rather, they introduce relevant points through the actions of their characters, or the setting, or natural dialogue. Could Fforde have describe BookWorld without the tedious tour scene? You betcha! Tuesday could've whisked her cadet away on their first assignment (after a behind-the-scenes tour and in-processing, presumably) and the important details of DiscWorld would've been revealed more naturally. Ditto for the ChonoGuards and time travel – introduce the concepts when they impact the current storyline, not before.

Okay, I've had my say and I'm ready for another tiny bottle of wine. Feel free to direct me back to this post if at some point in the future my (wildly successful) sequels have you bored silly.

Orphan Stories

When I was a kid, my dad often sent me and my sisters off to sleep with tales of The Meanest Man in the World. Although I can't recall the exact words, it always started something like this:

"There once was a man," he'd begin. "Was he a green man?"

"NO!" we'd shriek.

"Was he a lean man?"

"NO!"

"Was he a keen man, a bean man, a metal machine man?"

"NO!"

"No," he'd continue, his voice so quietly sinister I used to get goosebumps. "No. He was a mean man, The Meanest Man in the World."

Then the night's story would start. Oh, he was mean alright (the Man, not my dad!), with a particular penchant for torturing orphans. Not Hannibal-Lecter-style torturing, but psychological mind games. 

Like the time he delivered a beautifully-wrapped package to the orphanage, bedazzled with ribbons and bows and sparkle and glitter. It was the first present the orphan had ever received, and was so incredibly stunning that the orphan just stared wide-eyed for hours. When he finally set about to unwrapping, he painstakingly removed the trimmings one-by-one, each more glorious than the next, and put them aside carefully (no doubt to relive this wondrous event over and over). 

As he peeled back the layers he wondered with anticipation, what riches lay inside? A toy, perhaps? He'd never had a toy. Or maybe sweets? He'd heard of something called chocolate, where a single bite could fill one with joy. Or maybe a small puppy to love and to hold and to be his friend forever? He'd never had a friend. He almost dared not think it. 

The last layer was off and all that stood between him and his heart's desire was the cardboard lid. His heart was pounding and he could scarcely breathe. He closed his eyes and slowly lifted the lid. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and looked inside.

Any guesses on what he saw?

Anyway, decades later, I'm still drawn to orphan stories. Thanks to a recent discovery by Nik (I Judged a Book by Its Cover) I've had the pleasure of reading two absolutely fantastic orphan-themed books by Baltimore author Laura Amy Schlitz.

The first is Splendors and Glooms (titled Fire Spell in the UK). My local library had it filed away in juvenile fiction, but it definitely transcends this age group. The other, released a few years prior, is A Drowned Maiden's Hair (filed under Young Adult, presumably for content as the writing style is less complex than Splendors.) Both feature orphans pressed into service by not-particularly-nice adults. And both feature the deliciously creepy specter of long dead children who shape and influence events.

A Drowned Maiden's Hair tells the story of Maud Flynn, orphan and troublemaker, who's adopted solely to help her benefactors, the sisters Hawthorne, conduct fake seances for grieving parents. At first just happy to be out of the orphanage, Maud soon is torn between her desire for affection from her adopters, and her growing uncomfortableness with the deceit. 

There's a great supernatural element that I love, woven in with very real human emotions, both good and bad. I enjoyed Splendors just a tiny bit more, but both are excellent choices for a shivery read.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

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I have always adored the work of Ray Bradbury. I first came across him through the TV version of The Martian Chronicles, something completely different in terms of TV sci-fi.  The book was even better, and from that I moved on to his other novels and short stories. Bradbury was so prolific that even now and I can into a bookshop and stumble across something of his that I'd never read before. 

Ray Bradbury is no longer with us, and is a real loss to literature. This week, though, I came across the closest thing to a successor. 

I've also enjoyed the work of Neil Gaiman. My first encounter was his collaboration with Terry Pratchett in Good Omens, the wonderful spoof on The Omen where the Antichrist gets accidentally swapped for another baby in the maternity ward. Tee hee. I particularly like Stardust, and the film is great, too. 

But this time I'd just worked through the Christmas pile (yes, I know, but it was a big pile this year) to The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Starting it was like reading Bradbury all over again. A fantasy novel that could almost be true, with things we don't understand living just a few doors away. 

Gaiman can cut deeper with his prose than Bradbury did, and can make the reader uncomfortable in a way that's not my favourite feeling. But on the whole he restrains that here, and the result is a lovely, rich and rewarding read. 

Don't wait for next Christmas to get hold of a copy. 

Download Chapters 1-3 FREE from Amazon!

The best fiction of the Twentieth Century?

The Folio Society Edition

Over the last three years, I've been re-reading the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian. The Folio Society reissued them as a beautiful run of illustrated hardbacks, and despite owning the set already (twice...), the new editions were too good to miss. The books have sustained me through many a long-haul flight. Coincidentally, I stumbled across some first editions of the books recently, and had to restrain myself from bankruptcy. 

These are astonishingly good books: fantastic works of prose, meticulous in the detail of the period, and simply some of the best works of fiction ever written. Don't just take my word for it.

The books are set in the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars, and follow the fortunes of Jack Aubrey, a naval Captain, and his friend Stephen Maturin, a surgeon and spy. The range of storytelling that O'Brian wraps into that framework is amazing, from the obligatory naval battles to prison breaks in Paris to a trial for Stock Exchange fraud. Many of the stories are based on or set around historical events.

O'Brian published 20 Aubrey/Maturin books in his life. The twenty-first, untitled and unfinished book was published after his death: three Chapters that he had typewritten, and some pages of handwritten drafts. Because the books have a continuous narrative running through each of the individual tales, it's better to have these pages than not at all, though it makes for a greater poignancy than if book 20 had been the end of the story.

Buy from Amazon: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

One of the things about the presentation of the two versions of the text in the volume I have of 21 is seeing O'Brian at work as a writer. The words change from his handwritten draft to the typewritten version (and it's observed that he would almost certainly have revised and re-revised even further), always for the better. It's a real lesson to budding writers about the need to rewrite and revise and polish and polish and polish in order to make a text the best it can be.

O'Brian's works will outlive most of the fiction of the last century, because it's as near to perfection as he could make it. If you haven't experienced one of his books, now is the time to change that.

For me, it's back to the start with Master and Commander for my next trip away. Can't wait!

Buy from Amazon: The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels

I Judged a Book by its Cover

My local library has a little display section where the staff select a range of books that changes week by week. I suppose I should ask them what the criteria are. I generally have a flick through to see if there's anything interesting. Usually there isn't: fantasy, crime, romance, chick-lit, and so on. My technique is to browse by cover, title, read the blurb if it looks promising, then flick open and check the prose. Few make it through this rigorous process of selection and grading.

Buy Fire Spell on Amazon

One that did is "Fire Spell" by Laura Amy Schlitz. Lovely cover, of a marionette silhouetted against the London skyline. The prose definitely passed muster. So I borrowed it.

(In the US the book is published as "Splendors and Glooms", a decidedly odd title that seems to have nothing to do with the story at all!)

I really enjoyed this book. It's a fantasy novel, I suppose, though categorising it like that doesn't really do it justice. The core of the tale is an ageing witch trying to rid herself of the fire stone, the source of her power that both sustains and torments her. The main characters, though, are London orphans-cum-urchins, who work for an itinerant showman who makes his money, such as it is, from his marionette show, his fantocini. He's also an aspiring magician and former flame of the witch. There's also a young girl, Clara, daughter to a doctor and his wife who lost their other children to cholera and who live in a permanent display of mourning and grief.

Mix all this together and what comes out is a rich tale that brilliantly evokes late-19th-century London, the hopelessness of the orphans, and the tragedy of Clara, without being saccharine or maudlin or straying into the silliness that often accompanies any novel with a fantasy tag. The story starts with the showman being invited to perform for Clara's birthday, upon which he kidnaps her to ransom, using the opportunity to try out some nasty magic on her at the same time. The witch throws a spanner in his plans, summoning him to find a way of the fire stone being stolen from her, the only way she can be free of it.

I won't go on, as you need to discover the rest for yourself.  It's also a good book for advancing readers: my ten-year-old picked it up, browsed it, stole it, and I ended up with an overdue fine from the library as a result.

Beautiful books

Season's greetings to all of our readers. We hope that you're both well...

Book cover by Slightly Foxed

I had a nice bumper crop of books for Christmas. I'll review them in good time, but right now I want to wax lyrical about some absolutely gorgeous books that arrived in my stocking and under the tree.

The first is the Complete Calvin and Hobbes set. If you haven't heard of Calvin and Hobbes, then welcome to Earth and stay clear of Chernobyl unless your species is radiation-tolerant. C&H is one of the best of all the long-running newspaper cartoons. Not long-enough running in my view: the artist, Bill Watterson, gave up exhausted after battling the constraints imposed by newspaper editors who would cut sections out of his beautifully-drawn cartoons so as not to put any effort into their page layouts. Shame on them.

Anyway, the collection was a real surprise. Incredibly weighty, astonishingly high quality printing, and each book separated from the others by a paper slip case. Wow. That's attention to detail.

The other one is from a company that I've had my eye on for a while, a London bookshop that has branched out into publishing new, limited-run editions of out-of-print books (https://foxedquarterly.com/home/books/). I read a review of them a few months ago, focussing on the binding of their books, which are really things of beauty: hand finished, lovely quality, and the cover embossed with their logo. At £20 each, they're a bargain. (I'm not on commission here!) I've been watching their catalogue for a while, and a book popped up that caught my fancy: Period Piece, a memoir of turn-of-the century Cambridge written by Gwen Raverat, Charles Darwin's grand-daughter. I'll leave the last word to her, describing the river Cam at the time:

"I can remember the smell very well, for all the sewage went into the river, till the town was at last properly drained when I was about ten years old. There is a tale of Queen Victoria being shown over Trinity by the Master, Dr Whewell, and saying, as she looked down over the bridge: "What are all those pieces of paper floating down the river?" To which, with great presence of mind, he replied: "Those, ma'am, are notices that bathing is forbidden".

Period Piece, by Gwen Raverat

Whispers Under Ground

From Amazon: Whispers Under Ground

One of the main test for a writer who embarks on a series of books is whether or not s/he can sustain things beyond the second or third volume. Possibly my favourite series is Terry Goodkind's fantasy epic, spanning I've-forgotten-how-many books. My brother bought me the first one, "Wizard's First Rule", for Christmas an age ago. I'm dreadfully conservative with unfamiliar authors, but equally I can't leave a book unread, so ploughed into it and was swept through it with amazing speed.

I read what I thought was the final book a couple of years ago, but spotted two (two!) in an airport bookstore recently that have come out since. Roll on Christmas!

So, it was with mild trepidation that I approached "Whispers Under Ground". Ben Aaronovitch had nicely pulled off two books in his 'Peter Grant' series of novels where the London Metropolitan Police have a small specialist division dedicated to magical crime.

I shouldn't have worried. Apart from my previous gripe about ungrammatical writing, the book's great. The London Underground is a lovely place for storytelling: there's something about tunnels and darkness and things you can't quite see that really works for me as a reader.

Aaronovitch continues to expand his magical world. The follow-on from the end of the previous book, which is a bit of a cliffhanger, is perhaps a little weak, with too smooth a transition given that it does shake things up considerably; but that's a minor niggle. Overall it's another funny, well-researched, well-paced book. If you haven't already started on the first one, buy the lot, turn off the television, lock the door, lay in a quantity of chocolate, and enjoy.

20,000 hits (under the sea)

Thanks to y'all out there (see, I can write like Jay, too), we've now hit 20,000, ummm, hits.

Yippee!

As a celebration, we're going to give the blog a bit of a spring clean, weeding out those old posts written in a drunken stupor at 2 am, sprucing up the ones that were neglected over a holiday season, and proudly polishing for re-reading (y)our favourites.

The blog started off following a conversation between me and Jay about Fifty Shades, leading to some hugely popular posts poking fun at that book and puzzling over written erotica in general. Well, we've moved on since then to much more interesting and enjoyable stuff, so we have a new strap line and we'll be burning those embarrassing photos from the past. Sorry, posts.

Thanks for staying with us this far. We'll keep sharing our love of books, and hopefully, before too long, you'll be able to criticise the ones that we're writing right at this moment. Aren't you, Jay?

Damn you, Ben Aaronovitch

Listen, dude. Because of you, I’ve stumbled around in a sleepy stupor every morning this week. Because of you, I’ve slurped down cup after cup of coffee, tossed the kids Pop-Tarts® straight from the box, and crossed my fingers that my officemates won’t notice my questionable hygiene. My eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep and I’m pretty sure the state of my kitchen is illegal in at least 27 states. Maybe more. 

I can’t put down your books.

It started innocently enough when Nik turned me on to a couple of your New Doctor Who Adventures novels. I tore through The Also People in a few days, completely swept away by the story. I was less successful with Transit, although no fault of yours – I’ve misplaced it more times than I can count. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, is kind of odd. 

But it’s your Peter Grant series, dude, that’s totally done me in.

Did I mention I can’t stop reading them? The only reason I’m even able to write this post is because I dragged myself away from Whispers Under Ground and into the office, where even now, I can’t get Whispers out of my head.

For those of you who haven’t yet read Aaronovitch’s completely addictive series - Rivers of London⁽¹⁾, Moon Over Soho, Whispers Under Ground, and just out last month, Broken Homes ⁽²⁾ - Nik’s posted his reviews of the first two here: River of London & Moon Over Soho

The series is based in London and features Police Constable Peter Grant⁽³⁾, who works for a branch of the Metropolitan Police that handles unusual cases. Unusual as in paranormal and supernatural.⁽⁴⁾ Like river gods and goddesses, jazz vampires, angry ghosts, and truly gruesome monsters who do truly gruesome things. Where magic’s made a comeback, both the good kind and the bad.

Aaronovitch’s style is light and funny and witty: think Doug Adams or Jasper Fforde or David Wong (without all the bad words). He doesn’t dwell and the stories move fast, but there’s always enough detail to complete the picture. I’m absolutely addicted.

And if this wasn’t bad enough, I’ve just learned from Ben's blog (Temporarily Significant) that:

(a) Rivers of London has been optioned for TV (no dates yet); and 

(b) Ben’s working on Peter Grant #5!

 I might never leave my home again.

(1) Released as Midnight Riot in the US. Because, ummm, why?

(2) I’m horrified to discover that it won’t be released in North America until next February, no doubt to leave time to think up a suitable title for the New World. Something with guns and cowboy boots, perhaps. Must sweet talk Nik into bringing me over a copy.

(3) Constable is the starting rank for police officers in the UK. It seems a bit redundant to prefix “constable” with the work “police”  - like calling an Army officer “Army Lieutenant” instead of just Lieutenant, or calling a fireman “Fireman Captain” – but I suppose it helps to differentiate from all the other types of constables running around over there.

(4) Supernatural vs paranormal, what’s the diff? I’m glad you asked. I’ve wondered the same.

Moon Over Soho

Available here from Amazon

Moon Over Soho is the sequel to Rivers of London, Ben Aaronvitch continuing his stories of magical policing in London. 

The book follows straight on seamlessly from the first, and nicely builds on the themes: Paul Grant's magical training continues; we learn more about his family and his father's passion for jazz; there's something stalking the streets doing eye-wateringly nasty things to ardent men; Grant has to deal with what happened to his partner in the first book; and by the end it's clear that the book is firmly part of an ongoing series. 

Perhaps because of this, I enjoyed it more than the first book (see "Rivers of London" for my review).

It's also a much more confident narrative. There's less of the enforced history lesson that slightly blighted Rivers of London.  In fact, although there's still a wealth of detail that pins the book very firmly in London Town, it's completely unobtrusive. There's a villain to be faced, as well as creatures created by dark magic (to coin a phrase), and a central mystery the resolution of which is perhaps a little too obvious; or perhaps I've just read too many mystery novels. The book also contains one of the best chase scenes that I've ever read, a real page-turner. 

So, my recommendation to buy the first one as a holiday read extends to the second. If possible, shop where Jay does to ensure the best price....  

Rivers of London

Available here from Amazon

I had a lucky find recently. 

Yes, I know this a bit of a theme for this blog. One can draw one of four conclusions: 1) Since starting this blog I've had a lot of lucky finds; 2) I'm very lucky naturally; 3) I lie about my lucky finds; 4) I can't count to three. 

Only I know that 3 is untrue, which of 1 or 2 applies you'll have to apply to the goddess Fate for an adjudication. 

I've previously written about books I love by Ben Aaronovitch, a Doctor Who scriptwriter and novelist from an age ago. I was shopping for birthday books with my children recently when I spotted in the bookshop two – yes, count them, two! – new-ish novels by Mr A. 

Reader, I bought them. 

This is a review of the first one, Rivers of London. In the true spirit of abject non-objectivity that characterises this blog, I'm already part-way through the second one. I'm also seething furious about the fact that whilst I thought I'd picked up the books for a song on offer at £12 (call it $18) for the pair, as soon as I was lyrical to Jay she waltzes off and picks them up for about £5. Well, the next time she begs me to be let into my hotel room for adult companionship, she will have to look elsewhere. Which I can write in the confident knowledge that there's never been any such begging to date...

Rivers of London is great. It's a story that absolutely lives and breathes London as a city: Jay will have to help me out here once she's read it, to counterbalance my semi-local knowledge.  Perhaps there's a bit too much London in places, but overall it's a lovely story that mixes magic and modern policing. 

I don't think it has the sheer confidence and exuberance of Ben's earlier Doctor Who novels, but I liked it nonetheless. Liked, not adored. A brilliant holiday read, but I may not go back to it.  Oh, and you can testify, I hope, that the title of our second book is and has been "Magic" for some time. Mr Aaronovitch has clearly read my finished book and used time travel to steal some of the ideas. Well, sunshine, all I can say is that my lawyers have watched Doctor Who too, and I've kept a log of dates. Unless you can have me assassinated last month, I'll be gunning for you. 

Once I've finished writing the book.

Choosing books for advanced readers

One of these things is not like the other...

Creepy kids, haunting black and white photographs, an abandoned orphanage on a mysterious Welsh island, and…a Yo Mama joke that references oral sex? As they sing on Sesame Street, one of this things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong…*

Choosing books for advanced readers isn’t always easy.  Although as bright kids they have the skill to read at a particular level, not all books at that level will interest them or have story lines or language appropriate for their actual ages.

So as an admittedly overprotective mom obsessive about preserving my childrens’ childhoods as long as I possibly can, I cringed when I got to this line during a pre-read of Ransom Riggs’ NY Times #1 Best Seller Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children:

Jacob: Were you just smoking and chewing tobacco at the same time?

Ricky: What are you, my mom?

Jacob: Do I look like I blow truckers for food stamps?”

Why, Mr Riggs, why? I can’t for the life of me figure out why this line ended up in a kids book. Yes, I understand that Jacob is troubled, and that by saying something so shocking to Ricky, he loses his only friend. But surely the author could’ve come up with an equally friendship-ruining scene that didn’t include the phrase “blow truckers”?

Now I know that with Jacob being 16, this book is aimed at teens, not pre-teens. But I still think this particular line is a black smudge in an otherwise absolutely fabulous read.

And it is fabulous, truly. After a family tragedy, Jacob, with his father in tow, journeys to Wales in a quest for truth and understanding. He finds the orphanage, long abandoned now, where his Jewish grandfather lived during the war along with a host of other “peculiar” children. But as he soon discovers, not everything is as it seems. Not on the island nor in his everyday life, either.

Adding to the story are a series of stunning vintage photographs of the residents of Miss Peregrine’s Home. Riggs obtained them (the photos, not the actual orphans) from private collections and most are presented unaltered. They’re a key part of the story as well, not just illustrations, and add a definite otherworldliness to the narrative.

So as much as I enjoyed the book, will I give Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children to my 10 year old to read? Nope, not yet, I’m thinking junior high at the earliest. 

But what do you think? Is it silly to set aside an otherwise amazing book due to two poorly chosen words?

* This is how we sang it back in the day, when Bert and Ernie shacked up happily and cookies weren’t just a “sometimes” food. I think somewhere along the way the lyrics changed from “just doesn’t belong” to “are not the same.” Sigh.

Outta My Head

Since Jay and I are having a blitz on these books at the moment, I thought I'd carry on with the next review. I was also a bit miffed at the fact that her reviews (Book Musing: When Characters Seem Too Old) are better than mine, but I'm not sure that I can do anything about that...

The third book in Jonathan Gash's Bonn/Burtonall series is Die Dancing. 

I've read many, many books in my life. Most have them have faded in my memory, and I have to admit, rather ashamedly, that I probably couldn't tell you the plot of a great many of them, even ones that I've read within the last ten years. I enjoy them at the time, but I often read very quickly, and so they don't stick. 

However, there are certain scenes, phrases and vignettes from books I've read that stick vividly in my memory. Maybe I'll write about some of them later, to explore it a bit more. The reason I bring it up now, though, is that Die Dancing contains one of them. 

I suppose it's a fairly nasty scene, all told. A politician is killed by being thrown from a moving train; but it's not particularly graphic or gruesome. Or is it? The killer doesn't actually just throw out the victim, he holds him out of the door and swings him under the train to make sure. So there's no doubt that that's the end of the chap. It is the details like this that mean I remember it long after the first reading. The killer chuckling to himself before the deed, and turning the laugh into an emphysemic cough to gain the sympathy of an old lady sitting near. The ineffectual watching of the police, checking the train at each station. 

Gash's punchy, rich prose really carries scenes like this, avoiding the wordiness that can simply get in the way of telling the story. So again, this is a great book, and you can safely add it to your list for summer reading. 

Amazon: Die Dancing

There are still the inconsistencies in the editing to frustrate the nitpickers. Jay has gone to town on the characters' apparent ages. There's also an odd thing going on about just how often the male goers take on clients: it seems to be several daily, but then we're told it's only one. Then it's clearly several again. And do they use, ummm, protection, or not? Lets leave that one for now...

I'm going to move on to the final one as soon as I can find it on the bookshelf.  

Book Musing: When Characters Seem Too Old

Nik’s post on Jonathan Gash’s Prey Dancing got me a-thinking: what makes a character read “old” (older than the author intended, presumably)? Words, actions, setting? All of the above?

Like Nik, I was completely surprised to find out that the main characters in Prey Dancing are only in their 20s:  Clare, the doctor, is 28, while Bonn, the mail prostitute, is 20. They read much older than this. I’d pegged Clare at mid-forties and Bonn at early-thirties.

To me, Clare reads older for three main reasons:

1. She has a servant. Well, a housekeeper. But the type that fixes the meals, including tea, and basically runs the household. The type who has the final word on all things house-related and with whom one darest not argue. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but for me, twenty-something yuppies (do people still say yuppy?) don’t have servants. They’re for people in their forties.

2. She’s amazingly well-established in her profession. I might have the timeline wrong for Britain, but in the States, one graduates from college with a degree in pre-med about 22 or 23, then possibly a year for the MCAT and applications, and then another 4 years of medical school. So upon entering a residency program, one would be about 26 to 28 years. Residency length varies by specialty, but is typically 3-7 years, sometimes followed by a 1-4 year fellowship for certain fields.

Assuming Clare was on the fastest possible track to a basic GP - no year off, minimal residency, no fellowship - she’d have been 25 when she started practicing. I suppose now that I’ve done the math I can see how she could be an established physician at age 28, but that’s definitely not the typical path.

3. She’s astonishingly confident, professionally. Given that she has at most 3 years of real doctoring under her belt, Clare stands up to the nursing staff like she’s run the place for decades. Which isn’t necessarily odd - she could be a supremely confident young woman - except she’s not. Her husband manipulates her to a criminal extent and she crumbles under Bonn (although, to be fair, perhaps that’s more him than her). 

Ah, Bonn. The ultimate female fantasy, able to deliver to a woman exactly what she needs and how she needs it. Able to read a woman, understand her, pleasure her. Pleasure so good that she’s willing to pay for it. Sorry Mr. Gash, but unless things were different in 1998 Britain (and if so, get me to a TARDIS stat), I’m just not buying a 20 year-old’s ability to perform to this degree. Call me ageist, but I just don’t find an almost-still-a-teenager uber-lover a believable character. Now, I’m willing to be proved wrong (wink wink), but in my mind, I’m keeping Bonn at 32.

So what do you think? Does a dichotomy between projected age and actual age bother you as a reader? Do you take it at face value and move on? Drop the book? Or simply rewrite their ages in your mind and get on with it?

Amazon: Prey Dancing

The Mystery of the Car Park King

With all the news about the discovery of the skeleton of Richard III in a car park in Leicester, and all the forensic detective work that was done to i) find the skeleton, ii) prove it was him, and iii) describe in detail all the nasty things that happened to his body before and after he was killed, I thought it would be a good time to flag up a piece of detective work about Richard III that’s been around for some time.

And that is The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey. This is an absolutely brilliant book. If you don’t have a copy, you have to buy one now. Once you’ve read it, I’m sure you’ll seek out the rest of her books, but that’s for later. The Daughter of Time is an investigation of the historical legend that was built up around Richard III after his death, and if he really did murder the “Princes in the Tower”, his nephews. Shakespeare painted a pretty grim picture of Richard as a nasty scheming piece of work, a half-crippled hunchback. “Now is the winter of our discontent” etc.

Tey took the detective character she used in many of her books, Inspector Alan Grant, immobilized him in bed with a back injury, and had him work through the mystery of the Princes and whether Richard was the monster sketched by history or another man entirely. Well, what a fantastic way to communicate a brilliant piece of historical research! Rather than write a dry tome entitled “A Modern Reappraisal of the Life and Character of Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes in the Tower”, that would have sunk without trace, Tey wrapped the story into her fictional world and communicated it to thousands.

I sent my kid to school naked

As a research engineer, I author a lot of dry, science-y technical stuff. Everything from scholarly journal articles and tech reports to test plans, lab manuals, and memos. Besides the snore factor, one thing that sets this type of writing aside from fiction is that it’s often not necessary to provide smooth transitions from one part of the document to the next. It’s perfectly acceptable, for instance, to jump right from  “specimen preparation” to “instrumentation requirements” without any words to link the two sections. Just write up the former in its own titled or numbered section and do the same with the latter. No need for anything fancy, such as: 

“it was raining hard outside the laboratory, providing a soothing white noise for prepping the samples….later that afternoon, however, that same pounding rain made it almost impossible to concentrate on the instrumentation plan...”

As I plunge into fiction-writing, however, I’m learning that the same sort of brevity and shorthand doesn’t always work. In fact, sometimes it produces quite unexpected results.

Case in point: My 9-year old loves reading my WIP (see, I’m picking up the lingo). Or maybe it’s just an excuse to mess with my MacBook which is supposed to be completely off-limits to children. Heck, the boys have a tricked-out gaming PC that if we were to battle, would blow my little laptop away, but the allure of the Apple is great. Anyway, about two or three times a week he’ll open up my manuscript file to see what I’ve written. It’s a MG (more lingo!) novel aimed at boys, so he’s a perfect beta reader. 

I usually hover around while he reads, feigning business while actually gauging his reaction. I love his looks of surprise, his chuckles, and his outright laughter. He’s not shy or quiet about giving me feedback, either, which is great. If something’s funny or confusing or too complicated he lets me know right away. 

So this morning, he read through the last four or five pages that I added last week. Very serious he was, watching the story unfold word-by-word, until he stopped, looked up at me, and burst out laughing. I didn’t recall writing anything all that funny.

“What? What’s so funny?” I asked him.

“Mom, you sent the kid to school naked! Look! Naked!” he said and pointed to the screen. “See, he took his shower then showed up in school without EVER PUTTING ON CLOTHES!”

I tried to bluff my way out of it, claiming it was Naked Day at the fictional school, like when my own kids have Pajama Day or Jersey Day or Hat Day or Finding-These-Silly-Outfits-Is-Too-Much-Work-For-Mom Day, but he didn’t buy it. And he was right, of course. One minute the kid was sudsing up under a warm stream of water and the next minute he was apparently transported to his homeroom au natural. 

At least he didn’t have to walk. Now that would've been embarrassing.

Photo courtesy of nh313066 at www.sxc.hu.

On the many layers of communication in Fifty Shades of Grey

Dear Loyal Readers (or Reader, as the case may be),

Please accept my utmost apology for my slipshod review of Fifty Shades of Grey. If you haven’t read it, swing by now and take a peek. Click here. I’ll wait.

OK, back? Great.

As you’ve seen, in this early review, I mocked Ms James outright for her gross overuse of certain phrases: “cocked his head” (24 times), “Holy ___” (153 times), etc. While I stand by these statistics and the accompanying bar chart, I realized this morning over a cup of subpar coffee that I was grossly amiss in alerting you, Dear Reader(s), of the real horror that lies await ‘twixt the pages of Fifty Shades. 

I’m so sorry. Let’s delve deeper.

1. Nonverbal communication:  Referring to Figure 1 below (did I mention I minored in mathematics?), we see that the Fifty Shades crew seems to have an entire secret language made up of frowns, smirks, shrugs, scowls, groans, glares, and gasps. With a blanch and a whisper here and there to mix things up. 

Statistically, this equates to about 7 nonverbal messages for every 5 pages throughout the almost 400-page book, or on average, about 1.4 transmissions per page. 

Figure 1: Nonverbal methods of communication in Fifty Shades

Looking at the pie chart in Figure 2, which breaks down this grunt-speak (pause while I check if anyone actually grunts in Fifty Shades. Nope, nary a one), by percentage, we see that frowning is a clear leader, coming in 25% of the time, followed by snapping and groaning that together make up the next 30%. 

Figure 2: Nonverbal communication (by percentage) in Fifty Shades

2. Undertone communication: With so much groaning and smirking going on, it’s something of a wonder that the characters need to verbalize their thoughts at all. But in those rare instances where, for reasons unbeknownst characters can’t simply talk with a normal speaking voice, Ms James has created yet another layer of communication, this one made up of whispers, mumbles, and mutterings (see Figure 3 below). 

Figure 3: Methods of undertone communication in Fifty Shades

Similarly to the usage of nonverbal communication, this undertone dialogue is used about 7 times across every 5 pages. However, this language of whispers isn’t nearly as diverse as the bodily quirks and jerks (see Figure 4), with murmuring and whispering making up 2/3 of all occurrences. Breathing their words, which I’m not really sure how one doesn’t do this, is used 17% of the time, muttering is at 9%, and mumbling and grumbling together make up the bottom 3%.

Figure 4: Distribution (by percentage) of undertone comm in Fifty Shades

3. Scatological communication: We know from my last Fifty Shades review that Ana uses the expression “holy crap” 39 times throughout the narrative and “holy shit” 59 times. But if we account for the 90 additional secular scatological references (Figure 5), we see that mentions of feces occur so often (about once every other page), they’re practically another character!

Figure 5: Poopy-talk in Fifty Shades of Grey

Also interesting (I’ll restrain myself from charting this), is that while 61% of the time “shit” is elevated to Holy status, “crap” doesn’t seem to share the same prestige  - only 43% of the craps are deemed worthy of holiness. Who knew?

4. The big picture: Combining these keen observations with their accompanying statistics gives us a holistic view (backed by sound mathematical analysis) of the deep and intricate layers of communication in Fifty Shades. Here’s the bottom line:

On the average, nonverbal gestures, spoken undertones, and poop-talk appear three times on every page. Three times. Per page. For almost 400 pages. 

Egads.