I’m taking over Walt’s place on the blog and doing a two-day giveaway of two copies of AT RISK.

Just comment on this post that you’d like a copy, and I’ll draw two names to win on Tuesday night, June 24, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.ish CDT.

(Employees or participants in this blog and their family members and pets are not eligible to win, heh.)

You can find out details of the book at this link.

They say you can’t go home. Perhaps that is true, as I recently had that experience from a reading level. Back when I was in High School I discovered a series of books by John Norman, entitled “Gor.” (No, they were neither biographies of the future-and-once VP, nor were they slash and hack novels, but a sci-fi epic fantasy loosely done in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ sci-fi series about Barsoom or his John Carter of Mars books.) The Gor series of books revolved around a Earth gent named Tarl Cabot, a teacher in a small New England university.

In the first book Tarl goes camping, is “kidnapped,” and brought to Gor, a planet in a geosynchronous orbit with Earth, only on the far side of the sun. Gor is not only slightly smaller than Earth (resulting in Tarl now being capable of greater feats of strength), but it is also permanently stuck in a “Middle Ages” Meilu. That is to say, the inhabitants of Gor live in a world of warring City-States, where the most advanced weapon is a crossbow. Further, the beasts that cohabitate the world with the men that live there tend to be large lizards, enormous birds that have been tamed to carry men, as would horses on Earth.

Oh yeah, one more thing. There is slavery on this world, however (and this was a big draw for me when I was 15), much of the slavery issues revolve around gender politics. That is to say that — on Gor — men were men and women were, well, pleasure slaves. Yep, you read that right. The Earth, 1950s male opinion that women should be “Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” Is the rule of law here on Gor — except for the pregnant part, you see, the men give their female pleasure slaves a drink called “slave wine” that prevents them from getting knocked up.
continue reading "The past isn’t as good as I remember it."

Every so often I get one of those panic moments that is kind of hard to describe, mainly because the fear is completely groundless. But I get that flash of panic even so, and I got it the other day. But let me put this opening thought aside and talk about what occasionally transpires in my mind, and you’ll think I’m positively insane — – okay, a few of you already suspect that, so this won’t be much of a surprise.

Much like some people get an “ear worm” - a song with a melody they can’t seem to shake out of their mind for a time - I have a few “story worms” that I occasionally will contemplate. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a writer. I’ve tried writing, and I hate what I write. Why? It’s like listening to your own voice on a tape recorder and flinching. I’m just not patient enough to write enough to start getting good at it, and I haven’t tried for over a dozen years now. I suppose if I explained this all to a psychiatrist, she’d find it interesting that I ended up happily married to an author.

One of my “story worms” is a story that has rattled around in my brain for much longer than a dozen years, and even if I started writing, I know I’d never take a whack at writing this tale. I’ll occasionally contemplate it when I’m alone driving or some other solitary activity. I realized some time back that this “story” I think about actually doesn’t have that much real story in it. It’s just a story setting, a scenario. I’ve known from the very first time I starting setting this scenario, building this fictional world, that it’s derivative. I have no idea exactly which Sci-Fi novel I read that triggered me to start thinking it up.

And every so often, I’ll see a book premise that contains some elements in common with my fictional world, and I’ll get that flash of panic that someone is going to make a fortune from MY IDEA!! Yeah, like they read my mind when I took off my tinfoil hat. Yeah. Silly, I know. I hang my head in shame. But that flash of panic happens every time I read about a story with a similar theme.

And it happened just the other day. Let me tell you about it.

Alison and I had stopped to get some groceries from our local Kroger. We’re both in the store and as I pass by a spinner rack for hard cover bestseller ranked novels, I notice a face with a unique looking eye staring at me. Okay, interesting cover. I pick it up. Big thick book. Alison notices which book it is, and tells me that it’s #6 on the bestseller list, and I’ll be seeing more of that book real soon. As a matter of fact, the line for grocery checkout is long, and if she waited alone in the checkout line, would I go to the post office box to check the mailbox, that we were expecting a package, and I could be back before she finished checking out. Okay, so away I dashed. Sure enough, a eight pound box was indeed waiting for pickup, I grab it, and come back and wait in front of the Kroger in the car. I open the box. There, in the box, staring at me, were three eyes. Well, two eyes, and one underneath that. Three copies of that book with the eye staring out from the cover. Aha! The book that I’d be seeing more of, was seeing more of me! Cute, yes, but like I said, I was intrigued, so I turn to the book flap and start reading the book summary.

And there that panic flash was. Body possession. That’s the core part of this story I’ll never write! The idea that I could never make work someone else is making work for a gajillion dollars!

And Romancing The Blog is giving it away this week. I was holding the copies that RTB is giving away.

Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact and continue their lives apparently unchanged. Most of humanity has succumbed.

When Melanie, one of the few remaining “wild” humans, is THE HOST by Stephenie Meyercaptured, she is certain it is her end. Wanderer, the invading “soul” who has been given Melanie’s body, was warned about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the glut of senses, the too-vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn’t expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Link to the RTB giveaway of THE HOST
Link to the website for the book

Okay, so the story that makes up THE HOST isn’t my story. It’s not even close. Neither were any of the last panic flashes I had about body possession by foreign entities with evil intent. That story theme does seem to pop up now and again.

I did spend the next five minutes flipping through the book reading a few pages, and I did like what I read. I can understand the buying interest. It’s a romance first. That’s why it works as a book. Most of the time, body possession stories end up with entities that are fairly dispassionate “pod people” types (”force of nature” conflict) that is completely uninteresting in every story since the movie THE BIRDS came out and nailed the concept. With body possession AND a romance, it’s much more like an updated version of that episode of STAR TREK where we finally figure out the alien gas monster is in love with the human stuck on the planet, and takes possession of the hot chick who’s dying, and by possessing the dying hot chick, the alien in love saves the life of the hot girl AND gets her man. It’s corny, but as I always say, “Corny Works”.

Okay, so now you know general theme of the story I won’t write. What about the story that I will eventually write? Do I have one? Oh, you bet. And if you think I danced around the story details of my story I won’t write, you’re absolutely correct that I’ll not be divulging any scoop on the one I will write.

I just call it my “Galveston” book. I’ll write it one day. It’s actually got a story attached to it. Now I’m stuck on building out the characters. If only I knew someone that wrote books for a living, I could ask for help…

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a scene from Galveston that didn’t make it into my book, but makes for a cool get away image. What happens at the base of the Galveston seawall when nobody’s looking:

Flickr.com

The first two people to reply to this message will get a free book

And here’s the two catches:

You have to be able to read Slovakian.
You have to live inside the United States or Canada.

Yeah, that first catch is a doozy.

I don’t expect any replies to this.

The winners of Alison’s copies of TEX APPEAL are: Patrick M, Betty, ArkansasCyndi, Mickey, Tren, Claudia, Robin Renee Ray, Kim, Angela, and Ember. I’ll be emailing you all unless you email Alison first with your mailing address.

Ten readers who comment here (other than The Perfessor or any family members of Cuppacafe) by 8:00 p.m.ish CST on December 28, 2007 will receive a freebie copy of TEX APPEAL. (U.S. mailing addresses only, please.)

This speech has gathered a bit of controversy over a comment that is probably inconsequential to the final half of the speech.

I’ll quote the second half of her speech here, because it’s the part you might want to read before you find out what the speech has been made controversial over.

The entire speech is located here [Guardian]

The part that caught the attention of the internet is pointed out here[TechCrunch]

I would like you to imagine yourselves somewhere in Southern Africa, standing in an Indian store, in a poor area, in a time of bad drought. There is a line of people, mostly women, with every kind of container for water. This store gets a bowser of precious water every afternoon from the town, and here the people wait.

The Indian is standing with the heels of his hands pressed down on the counter, and he is watching a black woman, who is bending over a wadge of paper that looks as if it has been torn out of a book. She is reading Anna Karenina. She is reading slowly, mouthing the words. It looks a difficult book. This is a young woman with two little children clutching at her legs. She is pregnant. The Indian is distressed, because the young woman’s headscarf, which should be white, is yellow with dust. Dust lies between her breasts and on her arms. This man is distressed because of the lines of people, all thirsty, but he doesn’t have enough water for them. He is angry because he knows there are people dying out there, beyond the dust clouds.

This man is curious. He says to the young woman: “What are you reading?”

“It is about Russia,” says the girl.

“Do you know where Russia is?” He hardly knows himself.

The young woman looks straight at him, full of dignity, though her eyes are red from dust. “I was best in the class. My teacher said I was best.”

The young woman resumes her reading: she wants to get to the end of the paragraph.

The Indian looks at the two little children and reaches for some Fanta, but the mother says: “Fanta makes them thirsty.”

The Indian knows he shouldn’t do this, but he reaches down to a great plastic container beside him, behind the counter, and pours out two plastic mugs of water, which he hands to the children. He watches while the girl looks at her children drinking, her mouth moving. He gives her a mug of water. It hurts him to see her drinking it, so painfully thirsty is she.

Now she hands over to him a plastic water container, which he fills. The young woman and the children watch him closely so that he doesn’t spill any.

She is bending again over the book. She reads slowly but the paragraph fascinates her and she reads it again.

“Varenka, with her white kerchief over her black hair, surrounded by the children and gaily and good-humouredly busy with them, and at the same time visibly excited at the possibility of an offer of marriage from a man she cared for, Varenka looked very attractive. Koznyshev walked by her side and kept casting admiring glances at her. Looking at her, he recalled all the delightful things he had heard from her lips, all the good he knew about her, and became more and more conscious that the feeling he had for her was something rare, something he had felt but once before, long, long ago, in his early youth. The joy of being near her increased step by step, and at last reached such a point that, as he put a huge birch mushroom with a slender stalk and up-curling top into her basket, he looked into her eyes and, noting the flush of glad and frightened agitation that suffused her face, he was confused himself, and in silence gave her a smile that said too much.”

This lump of print is lying on the counter, together with some old copies of magazines, some pages of newspapers, girls in bikinis.

It is time for her to leave the haven of the Indian store, and set off back along the four miles to her village. Outside, the lines of waiting women clamour and complain. But still the Indian lingers. He knows what it will cost this girl, going back home with the two clinging children. He would give her the piece of prose that so fascinates her, but he cannot really believe this splinter of a girl with her great belly can really understand it.

Why is perhaps a third of Anna Karenina stuck here on this counter in a remote Indian store? It is like this.

A certain high official, United Nations, as it happens, bought a copy of this novel in the bookshop when he set out on his journeys to cross several oceans and seas. On the plane, settled in his business-class seat, he tore the book into three parts. He looked around at his fellow passengers as he did this, knowing he would see looks of shock, curiosity, but some of amusement. When he was settled, his seatbelt tight, he said aloud to whomever could hear: “I always do this when I’ve a long trip. You don’t want to have to hold up some heavy great book.” The novel was a paperback, but, true, it is a long book. This man was used to people listening when he spoke. When people looked his way, curiously or not, he confided in them. “No, it is really the only way to travel.”

When he reached the end of a section of the book, he called the airhostess, and sent it back to his secretary, who was travelling in the cheaper seats. This caused much interest, condemnation, certainly curiosity, every time a section of the great Russian novel arrived, mutilated, but readable, in the back part of the plane.

Meanwhile, down in the Indian store, the young woman is holding on to the counter, her little children clinging to her skirts. She wears jeans, since she is a modern woman, but over them she has put on the heavy woollen skirt, part of traditional garb of her people: her children can easily cling on to it, the thick folds.

She sends a thankful look at the Indian, who she knows likes her and is sorry for her, and she steps out into the blowing clouds. The children have gone past crying, and their throats are full of dust anyway.

This is hard, oh yes, it is hard, this stepping, one foot after another, through the dust that lays in soft deceiving mounds under her feet. Hard, hard - but she is used to hardship, is she not? Her mind is on the story she has been reading. She is thinking: “She is just like me, in her white headscarf, and she is looking after children, too. I could be her, that Russian girl. And the man there, he loves her and will ask her to marry him. (She has not finished more than that one paragraph). Yes, and a man will come for me, and take me away from all this, take me and the children, yes, he will love me and look after me.”

She thinks. My teacher said there was a library there, bigger than the supermarket, a big building, and it is full of books. The young woman is smiling as she moves on, the dust blowing in her face. I am clever, she thinks. Teacher said I am clever. The cleverest in the school. My children will be clever, like me. I will take them to the library, the place full of books, and they will go to school, and they will be teachers - my teacher told me I could be a teacher. They will live far from here, earning money. They will live near the big library and enjoy a good life.

You may ask how that piece of the Russian novel ever ended up on that counter in the Indian store?

It would make a pretty story. Perhaps someone will tell it.

On goes that poor girl, held upright by thoughts of the water she would give her children once home, and drink a little herself. On she goes, through the dreaded dusts of an African drought.

We are a jaded lot, we in our world - our threatened world. We are good for irony and even cynicism. Some words and ideas we hardly use, so worn out have they become. But we may want to restore some words that have lost their potency.

We have a treasure-house of literature, going back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. It is all there, this wealth of literature, to be discovered again and again by whoever is lucky enough to come up on it. Suppose it did not exist. How impoverished, how empty we would be.

We have a bequest of stories, tales from the old storytellers, some of whose names we know, but some not. The storytellers go back and back, to a clearing in the forest where a great fire burns, and the old shamans dance and sing, for our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world. And that is where it is held, today.

Ask any modern storyteller and they will say there is always a moment when they are touched with fire, with what we like to call inspiration, and this goes back and back to the beginning of our race, to fire and ice and the great winds that shaped us and our world.

The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise . . . but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative.

That poor girl trudging through the dust, dreaming of an education for her children, do we think that we are better than she is - we, stuffed full of food, our cupboards full of clothes, stifling in our superfluities?

I think it is that girl and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us.

–Doris Lessing

Last night Doris Lessing, aged 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In her acceptance speech she recalls her childhood in Africa and laments that children in Zimbabwe are starving for knowledge, while those in more privileged countries shun reading for the ‘inanities’ of the internet