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>Exeunt the Annus Horribilis

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So, 2009 ends with a whine, which is probably pretty apt, all things considered. From my perspective – which is, admittedly, a wee tad biased, it’s been a true Annus Horribilis (with options on a ‘orrible anus as well) with the constant question of whether my day job will still be there, economic woes, the publishing industry playing lemmings when not doing things that – at best – leave people scratching their heads and wondering where they can get whatever these people were on at the time.

Since I have issues with late nights, I’m not likely to do anything dramatic like stay up and watch anyone’s fireworks or anything, unless I get sucked into the current WIP.

So… gazing into zee crystal ball (genuine imitation crystal, $1-99 at Wal-Mart!), what do you see for 2010?

I see ebook readers becoming a more mature technology, maybe one showing up that actually does what I want it to. EBooks becoming more prominent – and more contentious. Someone is sure to try to claim that they own ebook rights for anything they published in dead tree lo! these many years ago, especially if the author has sold the ebook rights to someone else after untold years of out of print-ness (if they haven’t already done so, which wouldn’t surprise me).

I’m not sure when it will happen, but someone, somewhere, will go big with DRM-free eBooks, and begin the slow cracking of the DRM Curtain (this is a little like the Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain, only messier and full of holes – if you know where to look and what to do with the finger you poke through one of the holes). By the end of the ‘teens, eBooks will probably be bigger than dead tree, or close to it, and will be predominantly DRM-free.

What are your predictions? And how happy will you be to kick 2009 out the door in the hope that 2010 will be better?

P.S. Me being me, I’m a tad reluctant to say 2010 couldn’t be worse – if I say something like that, the universe goes out of its way to prove I’m wrong.

>A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Print

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>This is a ‘There’s no excuse, I’m just having fun’ Post.

>Because we all need to take a break some time. Down here in Australia nothing happens from early December until the end of January. We call it the silly seasons.

The schools and UNIs have their holidays (UNIs don’t go back until March). In the business world staff take their holidays so, except for retail, all businesses are on go-slow. From what I’ve heard it’s not like that in the northern hemisphere. But it’s midsummer here and so hot, all you want to do is lie around by the pool or at the beach.

So here are some fun things because writers are insatiably curious about people and the world in general.

First of all 9 Things we learned about us in 2009, by Rachel Rettner. For instance, did you know that some adults still have baby fat, or late sleepers are more alert than early risers?

And from that we move onto Humans: The Strangest Species by Robert Roy Britt. You could spend hours trawling through this page and all its links. Why do humans get freckles, get birthmarks, spread urban legends, see things that aren’t there, join cults or believe in UFOs? Just for starters. Ever wondered why we’re not all beautiful, since females supposedly choose who fathers their children?

Then, because it is a topic that’s guaranteed to wake up a bored audience, The 9 Most Provocative Sex Science Stories of 2009, by Sally Law. Would you believe pulling out is almost as effective as using a condom? (Don’t try this at home folks. And if you do, don’t sue me. I’m only repeating what I’ve read).

And on the same topic, Sally Law’s 10 Surprising Sex Statistics.

These holidays I’m going to recharge my creative batteries. I’m going to read heaps of books, both fiction and non fiction and see lots of movies. What are you going to do, to recharge your creative batteries?

>Sorceress of Karres – and publicity

>I’m going to be travelling on Monday – heading up to Johannesburg for our flight out to Australia, so I wrote this piece in advance. I’ve got a book (SORCERESS OF KARRES) coming out early in January so this is a soupcon of self-promotion and about the subject of the same.

In the long-ago, far away happier times authors wrote books. After all readers wanted the best read possible and beeing good with words didn’t mean you were good at anything else. In fact the opposite was probably true, as every single bit of research shows true genius is almost always narrowly focussed. Being a great golfer doesn’t make you a Geophysicist, and being an Oscar-winning actress almost certainly means that your grasp of politics is on a par with your ability to programme in MATLAB. And having a good way with words probably means you’re a solitary reader who spends a lot of time in company of imaginary people and may well have the social/publicity-skills of a wolverine with a fetish for red lacy underwear and flashing at retirement complexes. That’s why in those far-off happier times authors wrote. Agents sold their books to publishers, publishers hired staff to deal with the publicity etc. and the bargain was that each of you brought your special talent to the party and the reader got the best of everyone’s ability used to tempt them into buying.

Well, the old compact is no more, and, for 95% of us, if you want to be a writer of fiction, you’re going to have to make contributions to selling your books to publishers, and to publicity and marketing. Or you can hope you’re in the 5%. Your call.

Now for me this is all as natural as a swimming is to fish… NOT. I’m still unsure how to do this, what works (or even if it does). Cons, blogs, bookmarks, t-shirts, getting on Radio, doing tours, readings and signings (unless you’re 5% these will be at your own expense, and entirely organised by you.) However, in the nature of things the fact that you have no skills or resources for this and that promotion and marketing can and do have a huge impact — will not influence the decision of the next acquisition editor. So it has to be part of your game plan, as much as writing every day was.

So if anyone has any bright ideas on how best to do this – I’m listening. We all are.

>Agents, agents everywhere…so how do I get one?

>Last Monday, Dave blogged about an e-mail he’d received from someone asking if he knew who besides Baen accepted unagented submissions. One of the reasons for asking was because the unpublished writer didn’t want to have to pay an agent. Reading Dave’s blog, and the comments that followed, I thought it might be time to do a post about what an agent should do for you, as a writer, and what you should expect to do for yourself. Of course, as soon as I started researching today’s blog, I realized this isn’t something that can be covered in just one post. So, for the next several Sundays, I’ll be discussing agents, publishers and what a writer’s relationship with them should be.

It’s hard to find an agent these days. I’ve heard said that it is often more difficult to find an agent than it is a publisher. To be honest, I’ve had my fair share of rejections from agents. Some have happened so quickly — my record is less than half an hour after submitting via e-mail to an agent that had just blogged that their response time was slower than usual due to backlog — that I’ve known they didn’t look at the query. Some have never been answered — a growing trend with some agents who accept e-mail queries. You need to check their guidelines to see if they respond only when interested. But many more have been at least positive if apologetic rejections. Like Dave, I respect the agent I was referred to even more because she turned me down and didn’t just take me because a client asked her to look at my work. Still, I continue the quest for an agent even as I look for publishers not only for my novels but for my short-stories as well. The lesson is to do your homework and to be persistent. I can help with the former, the latter is up to you.

When looking for an agent, the first place to check is Preditors and Editors. Not only does the site list agents and rate them, but it also has a number of pages that contain information about agents, editors, and other information you need to know as a writer. But the most important page for those looking for an agent is here. From it, you can check to see if an agent or agency is NOT recommended. If there is red ink following the agency’s name, I highly recommend you not submit to them. Especially stay away from Writer Beware Top 20 Worst Agents. Along that line, don’t forget to keep a regular watch on the Writer Beware website and the Writer Beware blog. Not only will it give you information about agents, but publishers and anything, really, in the publishing industry that we, as writers, need to be aware of. One final place to check when considering whether to send to an agent or not is the Absolute Write Water Cooler. It may take time going through the posts, but there is a wealth of information there as well.

I’ve just told you how to find agents you don’t want to deal with. So how do you find an agent you do want to deal with? Victoria Strauss wrote The Safest Way to Search for an Agent. It contains some excellent advice and links. To what she said, I’d add to do an internet search for the agent as well. Check their blogs and websites. See if their clients blog about them, etc.

What should agents do? Also, what should you ask an agent before signing with them? Listed below are some good links that answer these questions.

• http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/09/what-do-literary-agents-do.html
• http://varkat.livejournal.com/12920.html
  
• http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-can-i-expect-of-my-agent.html
• http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2007/04/questions-to-ask-before-signing-with.html
• http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/05/questions-to-ask-agent.html

This is a good place to leave off. Next week, I’ll pick up the thread, adding in some of the agent blogs I follow. In the coming weeks, I’ll post about some of the publishers, traditional and electronic, who take unagented submissions and what their guidelines might be. In the meantime, are there any questions or comments you have? Are there any good links you’ve found that have helped you in your search for an agent? Do you think writers need agents, why or why not? Finally, what do you see the role of agents being in the growing e-book age?

>Science, Technology and Space Combat

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First let me wish everyone a very happy Boxing Day and hope you celebrate it in good company.

Today’s thoughts are about space combat as depicted in Science Fiction.

Some SF Warships are set in a universe or science that is so different from today that no meaningful scientific analysis of their technology is possible. I wrote a short story featuring such a ship in my short story ‘In Command’ in Baens’ anthology ‘Transhuman’. My story consentrated on the ship’s captain, the only living person on the giant warship unless you count the AI.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transhuman-Mark-L-Van-Name/dp/1416555234

Iain Banks has written a whole series of brilliant novels about The Culture, a space-dwelling civilisation based around giant AI controlled ships that use a science so high that it makes electronics look like a stone chisel.

http://www.iain-banks.net/

I play games with toy soldiers and have had fun with many space combat games. The picture above is of an Imperium battleship from the Warhammer 40K universe.

http://www.games-workshop.com

These drift through the currents of a ‘warp’ inhabited by psychic daemons, guided by three eyed navigators who can ‘see’ into warpspace. Otherwise, they are huge WWI battleships with tens of thousands of crew hauling on chains to load the guns.

Other stories look at near-future space warships. TV and films almost always get the science utterly wrong. Space has no resistance. You apply thrust to increase acceleration in a specific direction and that is all you can do to speed up, slow down or change direction. In gravity well, where all near-future space combat is likely to happen, the overwhelming force is gravity so all movement is along orbital tracks. Given that craft will have limited fuel supplies then spaceships cannot go anywhere and will move from place to place along predictable orbital solutions. A reasonable analogy is with sailing ships that tracked along wind routes. The predictability of navigation means that defensive mines and battler stations are a real possibility.

There is no shock wave in space so blast weapons are useless. The best ship killers will be bullets fired from something resembling a machine gun. Shells with proximity fuses, that fragment into flak would work. Missiles that are small spacecraft would also be a possibility. They would probably look like balls with two offset motors on booms to control course change and would fire their engines sporadically.

Lasers might be useful as a sniper device but the energy needed to power a ship killer would be prohibitive. Maybe a one shot weapon powered by a preloaded capacitor/battery would work.

Nukes would be great because of the radiation (not blast) that they generate.

The ideal warship would have no crew. People don’t belong in space and a ridiculous percentgage of mass and energy of a warship design would be needed to protect them just from space itself, let alone enemy action. The mathematical nature of space warfare makes it ideal for computers, communication links to ‘pilots’ being used for strategic decisions, like changing the orbital approach.

Last but not least, electronic warfare, detection (active and passive) and stealth, will be overridingly important. The first side to detect and plot the track of an enemy is likely to be the victor. An anology is with submarine warfare.

1. So what would a near future space ship be like? How would you design one?

Here are a couple of websites to stimulate the little grey cells:
http://gizmodo.com/5426453/the-physics-of-space-battles
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

Finally, for fun, let’s hear your version of a fantasy/ultra-technology space warship?

>Merry Christmas & Happy New Aliens!

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Wherever you are – white Christmas in the snowed-in north or Christmas by the pool in the sunny south – all the best for a great day. But will there be aliens celebrating with us?

Have the aliens already arrived? Or have they been and gone at various times in the past?

Periodically I have gone over UFO accounts on the web, and at one point looked obsessively at those British UFO archives that were released a few years ago. Its fascinating stuff. Undoubtedly lots of people have seen lots of things that cannot be explained.

Take the recent sighting of the UFO over the Kremlin (see inset photo – from Courier Mail). I kind of blinked when I saw this blurry image, which looks exactly like one of the smaller Stargate Goa’uld spaceships, the Tel’tak scout-ship. In fact the whole triangular (pyramid-like) shape was just a little two weird a co-incidence. Especially having something like a Goa’uld spaceship (say commandeered by SG1) hovering over the Kremlin is something I could have expected straight from a Stargate series script. Maybe April Fool’s Day is in December in Russia.

Lots of famous people have publicly stated they have seen UFOs – air force pilots, astronauts. The fact that various governments took the investigation so seriously for so long means that something was going on.

Given the massive distances and energy cost of likely space travel, it does make sense that arrivals would be smaller, likely even automated. Perhaps designed to gather data, but not capable of engaging into any sort of dialogue with species they encounter (unmanned & any AI’s not ‘authorised’ for contact). Perhaps civilizations within 50-100 lightyears – amused enough by Metropolis and Charlie Chaplin and similar early EM transmissions – have sent automated scout craft as a first response. If so – then maybe the first of these scout craft have already returned for download. That means the ‘manned’ response could come within the next few decades.

I personally hope we have been observed for thousands of years. Can you imagine getting your hands on the alien database with actual photos of Caesar going up against Vercingetorix at Alesia? Or satellite footage of the building of the pyramids at Giza?

So what’s your take? Have they been here? Is it all just atmospheric phenomena and deflated weather balloons? Or better yet – have you seen one?

>Life: a handy survival guide

>So, it’s Christmas Eve, and all the usual pressure to post something appropriate to the season. But which season? It’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and who knows what in other universes and timelines. I raise my middle finger in salute to the season, and instead offer some helpful guidelines to life in general, culled from my unmentionable years of experience in this world.

I call them the rules because, well, they work as rules.

Kate’s rules of life:

1. People are stupid. This includes everyone. Yes, even you.
2. There is a very special kind of stupidity only very intelligent people exhibit. “No common sense” is the least offensive way to describe it.
3. “Common sense” isn’t.
4. Equal opportunity doesn’t mean equal outcomes. It means everyone gets a fair chance. What they do with it is their business.
5. Life is inherently unfair.
6. Bitching about the unfairness of life not only does nothing to change things, it alienates people who could help change things.
7. Perfection doesn’t happen. There will always be flies in the ointment.
8. In any gathering of people, there will be a hierarchy.
9. In any organization, there will be a bureaucracy.
10. Any bureaucracy or hierarchy exists to perpetuate itself and increase its power, irrespective of the desires of individuals within it.
11. Not only does power corrupt and absolute power corrupt absolutely, power will attract the corruptible and corrupt.
12. Anyone who seeks power is automatically suspect.
13. Lying is universal. Look at the actions, not the words.
14. Anyone who says they never lie is lying. They might not know it, but they’re lying.
15. Most lies are social grease. The only harm they do is make it easier to tell the lies that aren’t social grease.
16. In any organization, compare the stated purpose to the actual result. The latter is the real purpose.
17. There is no such thing as objective judgment.
18. Everyone believes they are normal.
19. Every social unit exists to divide the world into “us” and “them”, and to protect “us” from “them”.
20. It’s a lot easier to accept the divide between “us” and “them” if you believe “them” are evil or not really human.
21. With few exceptions, no-one thinks they are evil.
22. Human capacity for self-deception is infinite.
23. Desire to believe leads to the biggest self-deceptions.
24. “Only the guilty have anything to fear” is a lie. Anyone claiming this should be removed from power immediately.
25. Left and right are meaningless abstractions. Look at the actions.
26. Follow the money. The trail smells bad, but it’s like shit – better out than in.
27. Always look at who benefits most from any corporate or government decision. That’s who paid for it.
28. Nothing is free. Look for the hidden cost.
29. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
30. If you have a choice between stupidity, even the most breathtakingly insane stupidity, and a conspiracy, go with stupid every time. The people you’re thinking about aren’t intelligent enough to maintain and hide a conspiracy.
31. Any secret known by more than one person isn’t.
32. Confidential information isn’t.
33. Most people don’t care. So long as life stays more or less the same, they’re happy.
34. Most people are scared of intelligence. Prove to someone you’re smarter than they are, and they’ll do whatever they can to bring you down to their level.
35. Most people are scared of anything new or different. They used to kill it. Now they just make it so miserable it kills itself.
36. Any political extreme is functionally identical to any other political extreme. They’re all dictatorships of the elite. The only differences are in how the elite are chosen.
37. Beware of governments demonizing any group of people. They might start with people who you think deserve to suffer, but they won’t end that way.
38. Beware anyone who refuses to compromise. Without compromise, nothing happens.
39. It only takes one to start a war.
40. Peace requires all parties involved to commit to it.
41. Evolution selects for aggression.
42. It usually isn’t worth it.
43. Every rule can and will be broken. Frequently.
44. Random acts of kindness confuse your enemies.
45. Everyone has enemies. Learn who yours are.
46. Knowledge is not power. Knowing how to use knowledge is power.
47. Beware of true believers of anything. The biggest atrocities are committed by true believers.
48. Taxation is not theft. Taxation is the cost of living in a relatively well supplied society.
49. If you choose to claim the moral high ground, be certain your actions are impeccably moral or you will be exposed as a hypocrite.
50. Survival is zero-sum.
51. Success is not zero-sum, but most people think it is.
52. Wealth is not zero-sum, but most people think it is.
53. The only way out is in a box.
54. There is no way to win.
55. There is no way to break even.
56. No-one will remember how many toys you had. They will remember what you did.
57. The noble savage isn’t.
58. Pre-industrial life was like rats: nasty, brutish, and short.
59. You don’t have to inherit wealth to make money, but it helps a lot.
60. There is never ‘enough’ although there is often too much and too little.
61. Civilization isn’t.
62. Civilization is the distance between life and death.
63. No-one plans to die.
64. Sturgeon’s law (90% of everything is crap) is optimistic.
65. Murphy was an optimist.
66. Plan for the worst, hope for the best, and expect what actually happens to bear no resemblance to either.
67. The easiest way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one.
68. Most people would rather be at the bottom of a hierarchy than outside the group.
69. Be a cunning linguist.
70. The good old days weren’t.
71. Holding the high ground makes you a target.
72. There’s no such thing as foolproof.
73. Sometimes the risks are worth it.
74. The sure, safe road leads to stagnation.
75. True pacifists can only survive if non-pacifists choose to defend them.
76. Independence isn’t. Everyone relies on everyone else to some extent.
77. There is no such thing as living independently. Everything you own involved some input from someone else.
78. Success requires work, skill, and luck. It takes a lot more of the last part than most people think.
79. Everyone who succeeds does so on the backs of a whole lot of people who don’t.
80. Everyone who succeeds has a moral obligation to the people they climbed over to get where they are.
81. Legalizing moral obligations never works.
82. If you succeed by stabbing people in the back, expect someone to do the same to you.
83. Ideal usually isn’t.
84. What you want probably isn’t what you need.
85. What you need probably isn’t what you want.
86. Aim for what you need first. The rest will usually take care of itself.
87. There is no such thing as a good war. There are many forms of necessary war.
88. War can never be fought cleanly. It can be fought ethically.
89. No matter how debased your enemy’s tactics, don’t adopt them. You can still succeed without them.
90. Benevolent tyranny is still tyranny. There’s no guarantee it will stay benevolent.
91. Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
92. Anything worth doing will be more difficult than you thought.
93. If it seems too easy, it probably is.
94. Pay your debts, especially the emotional ones.
95. Everything has conditions. If you can’t find them, they’ll bite you.
96. The most dangerous phrase in human history is “it’s for your own good.”
97. The most terrifying word in any language is “oops”.
98. Communism and Fascism have two things in common. Both are tyrannies. Both are evil.
99. Evil exists. It’s usually dressed up as good intentions – but not always.
100. The knottiest problems in human history have usually been how to handle apparently free resources. If no-one owns it, no-one’s responsible for keeping it in good shape.
101. It’s probably better to be an asshole than to be just passing through.
102. Look beyond the surface. Dog poop coated with gold and jewels is still shit.
103. The best solution to any problem gives everyone involved something they want.
104. A solution that gives everyone involved something they want may not be the best solution.
105. Friendship comes without strings attached. Respect has to be earned.
106. No position, no matter how elevated, makes the person who has it worthy of respect.
107. It’s called wage slavery for a reason.
108. Employers are in positions of power. Remember this.
109. If it seems stupid and pointless, look for someone whose power it increases. Of course, it may just be stupid and pointless.
110. Never blame the tool. Blame the person who uses it.
111. Technology is neutral. The people using it probably aren’t.
112. Sufficiently advanced skill is indistinguishable from art.
113. The human need for religion is the most easily exploited need in existence.
114. One man’s good intentions are another’s utter evil.
115. Be wary of anyone who claims they only want to help you.
116. Humans generally fall into one of four “types”. Followers, Leaders, Predators and Mavericks. Watch for Predators and try to be a Leader or a Maverick. The numbers are against you, but the rewards can be good.
117. Followers and Leaders do not like Mavericks. Predators don’t care.
118. Race is relevant only to your doctor. Culture shapes the way you see your world.
119. Look for your blind spots and actively try to eliminate them.
120. Your actions under stress reflect who you are. Anyone who becomes abusive or domineering when stressed should be watched and treated with caution.
121. People who want power will aim for control.
122. Anyone who can control what you do or say has power over you. Whether this is a bad thing depends on the situation – so be careful who you grant that power.
123. It isn’t possible to live without giving some people power over you. How much and whether it’s wisely given are different matters.
124. Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
125. Fences can protect you from what’s outside them. They can also lock you in.
126. Always remember that you could be wrong.
127. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.
128. Never mistake passion and enthusiasm for ability.
129. Civilization is the reflection of how well we control our animal instincts.
130. Natural is not always good.
131. Artificial is not always bad.
132. Few things in life are clear-cut. If you stick to rules, people will get hurt.
133. No-one is born innocent except in the sense that they haven’t done anything bad. Yet.
134. We’re born animal. How much we choose to deny the animal is a measure of our civilization.
135. “If it feels good, do it,” is a mantra for those who wish to give the animal full control.
136. Animals are not naturally warm and fuzzy. The ones that are are the ones we’ve bred to be that way.
137. It takes ten generations to go from wolf to nice doggy. It only takes one to go back.
138. Never trust a cat. They chose to make themselves more attractive to us. Love them all you want, just don’t trust them.
139. A cat purr short circuits brain cells. They know this.
140. When you feed it, you take responsibility for it. That includes expensive vet visits.
141. Rights and responsibilities are not mutually exclusive. Never treat them as if they are.
142. Never insert anything into an orifice that isn’t meant to go there. This especially applies to small animals and strange sexual behavior. That’s what sex toys are made for.
143. Gut instinct sometimes is just that. Sometimes it isn’t.
144. The human subconscious is the best pattern-matching tool in existence. Listen to those hunches.
145. Life is sometimes gross.
146. Scientific laws and theories don’t need anyone to believe in them. They might have gaps and hiccups, but they’re sufficiently proved that believing in them is a bit like believing in tables.
147. Anyone who says science and technology is evil needs to be reminded of flushing toilets, running water, and preemie wards.
148. Do not trust anyone who says technology is evil after being reminded of flushing toilets, running water and preemie wards. Just strip them and leave them in the empty area of your choice.
149. Never blame the tool. Tools, be they guns or flushing toilets, never hurt or benefited anyone by themselves. They have to be used.
150. It always comes down to how it’s used.
151. Grammar is not your mother or father’s mother.
152. Spelling and grammar are not tools of torture, they are tools of communication.
153. Learning is good. Knowing a little about something is dangerous.
154. Never stop trying to improve. It’s impossible to stay static – you can only improve or decline.
155. A low tooth/tattoo ratio is never good.
156. Poverty may not be optional. Squalor is.
157. You are not your parents.
158. You are not your ancestors.
159. You are not required to stay where you were born, physically or socially.
160. Small, weak bodies can be excused. Small, weak minds can’t.
161. Zero-sum is not necessarily a bad thing.
162. Incorrectly identifying something as zero-sum is a bad thing.
163. It really is stranger than you can believe.
164. There may be no absolute Truth, but there are plenty of effective truths.
165. Always remember that anything you say could be your last words.
166. Live every day as though it was your last – it just might be.
167. Your intuitively obvious truth is someone else’s bizarre delusion. And vice versa.
168. Beliefs can be objectively judged by how much harm they do. After everyone has finished arguing about how ‘harm’ should be defined.

Additions and amendments are welcomed.

>Shameless Self Promotion

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In which I post late, and then do a shameless bit of self promotion 😉

Out now — Gentleman Takes A Chance — a dragon meets panther meets the unimaginable danger of a conspiracy of elder, more dangerous shifters:

“I take it The George is closed?” Tom said, and raised his hand to rub at his forehead between his eyebrows.
He squinted as if he had a headache and there were heavy dark circles under his eyes. Granted, skin as pale as Tom’s bruised if you sneezed on it, but he didn’t normally look like death warmed over. She wondered why he did now. “It’ s either closed now or it will be very soon. I called Anthony and he said it was pretty slow. He wanted to shut down the stoves and all, close and go home. So I told him fine. I know we could probably walk to The George but–”
“I looked out,” he said. “We might very well not find The George in this. Blinding blizzard.” He blinked as if realizing for the first time what she was doing. “Cookies?”
“Well… the radio said that there will be emergency shelters and I could only figure two reasons for it. Either the snow is going to be so heavy that the roof will collapse, or they’re afraid we’ll lose power. Can’t do anything about roof collapsing. Not that tall. But I can preemptively bake cookies. Make the house warm.”
He came closer, to stand on the other side of the little table. Though he was still squinting, as if the light hurt his eyes, his lips trembled on the edge of a smile. “And we get to eat the cookies too. Bonus.”
“Make no assumptions, Mr. Ormson,” she waggled an admonitory finger. “This is the first time I’ve baked cookies. They might very well taste like builder’s cement.”
His hand darted forward to the bowl and stole a lump of dough. Popping it in his mouth, he chewed appreciatively. “Not builder’s cement. Raisin AND chocolate chip?”
She shook her head and answered dolefully, “Rat droppings. The flour was so old, you see.”
He nodded, equally serious. “Right. Well, I’ll take a shower, and then we can see how rat droppings bake.”
Down the hallway that led to the bathroom, she heard him open the door to the linen closet. Using a clean towel every day was one of those things she didn’t seem able to break him of. But part of living together, she was learning, was picking your battles. This was one not worth fighting.
She heard him open the door to the bathroom as she put the cookie trays in the oven. She was setting the timer when she heard the shower start.
And then…
And then the sounds that came out of the bathroom became distinctly unfamiliar. They echoed of metal bending under high pressure and tile and masonry cracking, wrenching subjected to forces they weren’t designed for.
Her first thought was that the roof had caved in over the bathroom. But the sounds weren’t quite right. There was this… scraping and shifting that seemed to be shoving against the walls. The cabinet over the fridge trembled, and the dishware inside it tinkled merrily.
Kyrie ran to the hallway and to the door of the bathroom.
“Tom?” she said and tried the handle. The handle rotated freely – well, not freely but loosely enough that the door clearly was not locked. And yet it wouldn’t budge when she pushed at it. “Tom, are you in there?”
A growl and a hiss answered her.

*******************************************************

Out January fifth, in time to redeem those gift certificates — Darkship Thieves:

Inside, the lifepod bay was cavernous, and lifepods were set in a circle around the bay, each of them in front of its own eject lock. There were thirty five. Enough for everyone aboard. I dove towards the nearest one.
And saw one of the goons – from the bulk Narran, another of Father’s favorite bodyguards – near the control panel inside the lifepod bay. He was about to press the button that would lock the lifepods. Not that I knew there was such a button, but it stood to reason. He could prevent my leaving.
Instinct is a wondrous thing. I turned around, grabbed my slip and tore it, top to bottom, exposing my naked body.
It was only a second but, if I knew the male brain – and I did – long enough to short circuit his reactions for a couple of seconds.
Enough for me to jump into the lifepod and push the red eject button. I suspected once that was done nothing could stop it. But still, relief flooded me as the pod shot out into the membrane that divided it from the airlock. The membrane opened to let it through. Then the other membrane opened.
I shot out into space in the lifepod – which was a triangular vessel made of transparent dimatough and barely large enough to hold me – in an awkward position, effectively straddling the central axis of the vehicle, with my knees and legs on the floor of it, and bent forward over controls that consisted only of a joystick and a com button.
Trembling, I took a deep breath. Whatever was going on, I was sure my father’s goons would follow me as soon as they could strip off their dimatough armors and squeeze into the lifepods.
I had to get away from here. I had to get help.
Grabbing hold of the joystick, I pointed myself towards Circum Terra, which hung like a glowing doughnut in the eastern quadrant of the sky. With my free hand I pushed down the combutton.
“Help,” I shouted into whatever frequency might be picking up. The cruiser for sure, but perhaps Circum Terra too. “My name is Athena Hera Sinistra. My father’s space cruiser has been highjacked.”

>The elves have kidnapped Sarah

>and she’s being forced to finish off the Christmas gifts for several universes, so it’s open thread time.

As usual, keep it away from political and other hot button topics, and have fun. If you want to speculate about how Sarah’s characters would celebrate, feel free…