New Author Spotlight: Rhodi Hawk

New Author Spotlight is a series designed to introduce authors with up to 3 books in the different SF/F subgenres.

Today's spotlight shines on Rhodi Hawk!

She has written:

Here's the cover copy for A Twisted Ladder:

Psychologist Madeleine LeBlanc has spent her whole career trying to determine the cause of her father''s schizophrenia. She always felt that if she could unravel the disease's origins, she could cure the man who left her and her brother, Marc, to practically raise themselves on the Louisiana Bayou. When Marc takes his own life, Madeleine embarks on a shocking journey into her family's history-fraught with dark secrets, conjured demons, and a powerful relative who puts Madeleine's own life and property in peril. The only way to she can save herself is to face the ghosts of the past, the dangers of the present, and the twisted ladder that links them all together.

Check out her books if you enjoyed any of the following:

The Hollow City by Dan Wells (Tom Doherty Associates)

Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan (HarperCollins)

Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman (Berkley Trade)

12 Question SF/F/H Book Meme

SF Signal did a book meme post this past Saturday and I've now got time to do it. :)

1. The last sf/f/h book I read and enjoyed was: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (YA); Up Against It by M. J. Locke (adult SF)
2. The last sf/f/h book I read and did not enjoy was: something I didn't finish and now can't remember
3. A sf/f/h book that I would recommend to new sf/f/h readers is: 0.4 by Mike Lancaster (YA); Transformation by Carol Berg (fantasy); The Shining by Stephen King (horror); On Basilisk Station by David Weber (SF)
4. A sf/f/h book that I would recommend to seasoned sf/f/h readers is: Kop by Warren Hammond (SF); The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie or The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas (fantasy), Shadows by John Saul (horror)
5. The sf/f/h book I most want to read next is: I have a huge list that's constantly changing and growing.  Some books I want to read soon (but won't due to other obligations) are: The Explorer by James Smythe, The Testament of Jesse Lamb by Jane Rogers, The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin, A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King, Stand on Zanzibar by John Brenner, The World Inside by Robert Silverberg, Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed...
6. My favorite sf/f/h book series include: Terry Pratchett's Discworld, Weiss & Hickman's Death Gate Cycle, Terry Brooks' Shannara Books (though I'm woefully behind), R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt books (which I'm also behind in)
7. I will read anything by this sf/f/h author: Carol Berg.  She's created several worlds, all complex with different magic systems and manages to torture her characters while still imbuing her books with humour.
8. The first sf/f/h book I read was: either The 7th Princess by Nick Sullivan (I managed to track down a copy and enjoy it just as much as an adult) or Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert O'Brien; the book that got me reading SF/F almost exclusively was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, but I had to start it 2 or 3 times before I really got into it
9. The sf/f/h book I’m most surprised that more people don’t like is: Transformation by Carol Berg.  It's got humour, character growth, magic, and some very dark moments.  Berg's a fantastic author and criminally under read.
10. The sf/f/h book I’m surprised so many people do like is: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.  I forced myself to finish it because it's so well revered, and hated every page.
11. The most expensive sf/f/h book I own is: None of my books were more expensive than the art and history texts I needed for university.  I paid $90 for a hardcover Chaucer, which is beautiful and worth every cent.
12. The number of sf/f/h books I own and have yet to read is: at least 50-100, not counting my husband's collection.  With his books, add at least 100 or 200 more.

Historical accuracy in SF/F

I just read this fascinating article by Kameron Hurley where she mentions that women have always fought in wars, they've just been edited out of history by the men recording events.  She links to several interesting articles, among them this one on default settings in SFF (ie, white, male, heterosexual).

Having studied medieval history I have a better grasp than many what life was like during those times.  Even so, my knowledge was shaped by the books I read, what my professors thought was important, what was known/believed at the time.  In other words, despite 'knowing' what the middle ages was like, I'm constantly learning things I didn't know about the era.  That's the beauty of life, learning new things and correcting your beliefs to accept the new knowledge.

A lot of people don't seem to do that though, thinking what they learned in school is 100% truth (it's not, - sorry this is a U.S. example.  I'm sure every other country manages to teach half truths and outright lies as well) and there's nothing else to know.

It occurred to me, while reading the above articles, that a great way of educating SFF readers would be to do what many historical fiction authors already do: list their research bibliography at the end of the book and have a short author's note on what's real in the book and what they made up/fudged to make the book work.  I've seen several authors do this, and each time it not only made what happened in the book feel more real (truth really is stranger than fiction), it taught me things about history I didn't know before.

The first time I encountered this was with Mary Stewart's Merlin series (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, The Wicked Day, The Prince and the Pilgrim).  I've read all but the last one (which was written more recently, and I didn't realize it was part of this series) and they are fantastic.  If you like the King Arthur legends, this is a great series.  Anyway, I remember getting to the end of The Crystal Cave and learning what the real legend was and how and why Stewart played with it.  Similarly, The Wicked Day took a VERY different interpretation of Mordred's story than is generally portrayed and her explanation of why she made the decisions she did was fascinating.

The only other places I remember seeing something similar was in Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (for an SF example) and Michael Ennis's The Malice of Fortune.  M. J. Locke had a quick note about the real program she based one of her programming languages in Up Against It on, which was cool too.

I think it would be a great opportunity for both readers and authors for authors to have a section at the end of the book that gives them the chance to mention some of the research they did for their book.  The things readers could learn!  Even in just a few paragraphs.  And with books to refer to if they don't believe you so they too can expand their understanding of history (and perhaps open their eyes to truths they otherwise can't/won't see).

I'm (slowly) reading a history book called Ancient Inventions by Peter James and Nick Thorpe.  It's organized by theme rather than period or geographical location, so it's easy to see who had discovered what, in relation to everyone else.  And it is fascinating.  Modern people have such a skewed grasp of history and what our ancestors were capable of.  We short change them in so many ways and on so many topics.

It would be great to see fantasy books (and SF when relevant) reflect more of what history was actually like.  And perhaps adding an addendum of 'this is what's true' would help educate readers, making them less likely to question similar historical accuracies the next time they encounter them in books.  Because the only way to change beliefs is to educate people into new ones.  And the only way to show the real contributions of women in the past is to represent them accurately, and then make readers understand that they were accurate portrayals.

Book Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Pros: horrifying invasion story, believable protagonists, compelling story

Cons: 

For Parents: some swearing, kissing, the violence isn't graphic but there are child soldiers, executions, and murder

Cassie has survived the first 4 waves of the alien invasion: light's out, surf's up, pestilence and the silencer.  Seven billion people didn't, including her mother and father.  Her five year old brother was taken away in the 4th wave.  Now she waits for the 5th wave and the courage to keep the promise she made to her brother, that she'd come after him.

This is a brutal invasion story.  These aliens know how to wipe out humanity and do so in sweeping waves, each more destructive than the last.  Through Cassie's eyes we learn about the 4 previous waves, and through her eyes, and those of a few other characters, we slowly learn what the 5th and final wave is.

There's a fair amount of violence, particularly when the child soldiers come into the picture.  But it's violence that serves a purpose and isn't graphically portrayed.  This is a book that questions humanity.  What will humans do to survive?  What makes you human in the first place?  The book doesn't answer these questions, making it a great jumping point for discussion.

The characters are believable, falling apart under the pressures of the new world and picking themselves up again because doing otherwise means death.  This makes the book difficult to put down.  The writing is intense and while you may see the revelation that is the 5th wave coming, it doesn't stop it from being horrifying in its implications.

The ending is very tense, though I'm not sure I believe the kids could accomplish everything they do, and it ignores the larger picture.  But it does give a good closure for the book.

I highly recommend it.

Signed Copies of A TURN OF LIGHT

Julie Czerneda stopped in at the World's Biggest Bookstore last week, which means we've got some signed copies of her new fantasy novel, A Turn of Light.  She even signed my interview page.

But she didn't just sign her name in the books, she also used an adorable toad stamp beside it (which has relevance to the story). :D  So if you're in Toronto and want a signed copy, come on down to 20 Edward Street.

Book Review: Up Against It by M. J. Locke

Pros: hard SF, interesting characters, complex interconnected story lines

Cons: characters sometimes solve problems too easily, ending felt too pat

Jane Navio manages resources for 25 Phocaea, an asteroid settlement.  When an accident destroys most of the current shipment of ice that provides water, air and fuel for the colony, she's beset by numerous problems.  A feral sapient is born from the disaster and must be dealt with before it creates havoc and the martian mob appears to be the only ones in possession of enough ice to save them.  But Jane's dealth with the mob before, on her previous home, Vesta.  She barely escaped with her life.  Many others she knew weren't so lucky.

Meanwhile, four young bikers who happened to be at the scene of the accident, keep getting in and out of trouble as they cross paths multiple times with those investigating and those exacerbating the crises.

This is a clever hard SF story with multiple major conflicts and some great protagonists.  Jane is a complex character who's used to dealing with politics even though she's not keen on them.  She's first introduced making a life or death decision reminiscent of Ripley, but while she's got a cold exterior, she's got a sense of morality that won't let her deal with the mob, even when their ice shipment appers to be the colony's only means of survival.

While the book focuses on certain people, it's clear that this is a large colony, with multiple layers of bureaucracy that are mentioned when necessary, but not in enough detail to swamp the book.  I only remember one occasion where a name was mentioned and I couldn't place it because it was a beurocrat only mentioned in passing before.

The larger world is also shown to have complex politics and economics, even if they're only hinted at.  There's the martian mob, the 'Stroders (cameras that record what happens in the colony) sending data to reality TV watchers on Earth, and the Earth politics that made gene splicing illegal and forced the Viridians to emigrate.  Apparently Canada's no longer a nice place to live, as it's referenced as having refuge camps and detainee centres.

I appreciated the mix of races and religions represented, as well as sexualities, from the expectant homosexual couple barely mentioned in a park to the Viridians who prefer non-gendered pronouns that reflect their gene spliced states.

One of my favourite things in the book was Tonal-Z, a music based programming language used to talk to the feral sapient.  The acknowledgements credit a real life interface concept as the genesis for it and I'd have loved to see more of it in action.

The only problems with the book that I found were that the 4 teens kept running into more and more problems in a way that started to feel manufactured even though there were logical reasons why they were in each of the places.  And while I liked the fact that, given the locations, characters realized if they were going to get out of bad situations they needed to save themselves as the chances of someone else learning of their problem and/or arriving in time to help were slim, there were a few times when characters got out of tough spots remarkably easily.  Similarly, given all the problems the protagonists faced, the ending seemed a little too pat.  

If you're looking for space battles, look elsewhere.  There are a few fight scenes (which are all remarkably different), but on the whole this is a cerebral SF novel.

If you like interesting science, cool characters, depictions of what it might be like to live in space and complex world building, then give this book a try.

The AGO's Revealing the Early Renaissance Exhibit

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to see the Art Gallery of Ontario's Revealing the Early Renaissance Exhibit, about art in Florence from 1300-1350.

The exhibit was incredible, taking me several hours to go through a handful of rooms.  My university degree is in Medieval Studies, and I took a few art courses (mainly on manuscripts and cathedrals) and the exhibit's range was at the tail end of what I studied and introduced a few new elements.

I learned several things from this exhibit, which I thought I'd share.  Sometimes when world building we try to make things logical and forget that the real world often ignores logic (or has a logic that made sense at the time and no longer does).  For example, most craftsmen belonged to guilds.  These gave protections - both for the craftsmen and the patrons - set prices, assured quality, etc.  Because Florentine painters (the real focus of the exhibit) bought their pigments from apothecaries, they belonged to the guild of Doctors and Apothecaries.

Florence's gold Florin was the dominant currency in Europe during this period.  In earlier ages royal patrons built churches, etc. to decrease their sins in the eyes of God.  In Florence, bankers (that is, Christian bankers) funded churches and religious art in order to remove the stigma attached to them due to their charging interest (usury - something the Christian church would not allow other Christians to do, making it one of the few career options open to Jews - who, according to their own religious laws, could charge interest to Christians but not other Jews).

Famous artisans created workshops where they would train apprentices and get them to do the grunt work associated with the art.  Modern scholars try to figure out what portions of artworks were done by the masters and what by the apprentices.  Sometimes it's easier to see than others.  Like with the Peruzzi Alterpiece.  Christ and the two figures to his right are significantly better shaded (look at the cheeks, necks, creases on foreheads and in clothing) and therefore look more alive than the two figures to the left.  The right hand figures were done by Master Giotto di Bondone.

One of my favourite pieces (and yes, I'm strange), was the Laudio of Sant'Agnese.  Commissioned for a lay confraternity, it has the music and notation that would have been sung, as well as some truly gorgeous manuscript illustrations.  These illustrations were so beautiful that the manuscript was dismantled and the individual pages scattered.  A number of them have been identified and gathered for this exhibit.  The colours are still vibrant and the scenes from worshipful to downright macabre (like the roasting- I mean the Martyrdom - of St. Lawrence, which you can see at the above link).  There's also a creepy two panel page with a man being flayed alive and then kneeling with his skin as a cloak as he waits for his head to come off.  Yeah.

The exhibit ends with a 10 minute video on doing a panel painting (like the alterpiece).  The amount of prep work required, and the time sensitive nature of each step, shows how much dedication these people had to their art.  Amazingly I've found the video on the J. Paul Getty Museum (which owns many of the works on display in the exhibit)'s youtube page.  The narrator is different, but the information is the same.