From The Daily Mail:

There is the occasional bright spot - one veteran describes Britain as 'still the best country in the world' - but the overall tone is one of profound disillusionment.

'I sing no song for the once-proud country that spawned me,' wrote a sailor who fought the Japanese in the Far East, 'and I wonder why I ever tried.'

'My patriotism has gone out of the window,' said another ex-serviceman.

In the Mail this week, Gordon Brown wrote about 'our debt of dignity to the war generation'.

But the truth that emerges from these letters is that the survivors of that war generation have nothing but contempt for his government.

They feel, in a word that leaps out time and time again, 'betrayed'.

New Labour, said one ex-commando who took part in the disastrous Dieppe raid in which 4,000 men were lost, was 'more of a shambles than some of the actions I was in during the war, and that's saying something!'

He added: 'Those comrades of mine who never made it back would be appalled if they could see the world as it is today.

The loss of British sovereignty to the European Union caused almost as much distress. 'Nearly all veterans want Britain to leave the EU,' wrote one.

Frank, a merchant navy sailor, thought of those who gave their lives 'for King and country', only for Britain to become 'an offshore island of a Europe where France and Germany hold sway. Ironic, isn't it?'

A Desert Rat who battled his way through El Alamein, Sicily, Italy and Greece was in despair.

PENDANT PRODUCTIONS PROUDLY PRESENTS:

Original artwork by Kristen Bays for Pendant Productions

Episode 39 - "The Return of Brassy Battalion"

A spy advises SCAR while Dixie reunites Brassy Battalion!

"Umket Industries Presents: The Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion Adventure Theater" is a serialized, full-cast audio adventure with one new episode every month. Available for free download in .mp3 format, or as a Podcast!

Also featuring an audio commentary track with the director and writer!

iTunes link:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=163997482

Podcast feed:
http://www.pendantaudio.com/dixie-podcast.xml

Download link:
http://www.pendantaudio.com/dixie.php

And ALSO AVAILABLE from the Pendant Store:
Season One of "Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion" on audio CD!
Produced from the original master mixes with over five hours of
content, including exclusive bonus features!

http://www.pendantaudio.com/store.php

I came across a quote quiz relating to scifi quotes. I didn't get a few of them - can anyone recognize them all?

10 Famous Quotes - Science Fiction Edition (Quiz yourself!) sound bite Science Fiction Sounds sound bites

Is everyone celebrating the end of NaNoWriMo by posting something in note_to_cat?

Eric Flint was the Guest of Honor at the 39th running of the Chambanacon last weekend. His wife Lu couldn't make it, so he asked if I wanted to go as his guest. I drove us down, to make it fair.

Chambanacon is what they call a "relaxacon" which means there isn't much programming, and what there is of it is really loosey goosey. It is really a weekend to relax with friends, meet new friends, and talk about whatever we wanted to talk about. Which, in this crowd is science fiction, space travel, fantasy, politics, authors, religion, high tech, gaming, lather rinse and repeat.

I met some fantastic folks. Bill and Brenda Sutton were Toastmaster and Fan Guest of Honor, respectively, and Brenda and the wonderful Juanita Coulson, an absolutely underrated science fiction and fantasy author and filker, who has been around fandom since way before it was cool, were in charge of a large filking contingent.

Attendance was down at Chambanacon, probably due to the economy, but there was a very strong gaming contingent that filled up all the tables in the con suite, overseen by Mike Wallis and his wife Faith, ably assisted by their scary-smart young daughter. I even played a great game with the Wallis family.

The Wallises are the con-com for a gaming convention in April in East Peoria at the campus of Illinois Central College, called Spring-Offensive, which my daughter Andrea is considering taking the Gaming Club of Waubonsee Community College to as a school activity.

"And a great time was had by all."

(A guest post by Euclid Hoyt, the patriarch of the Hoyts' tame pride and known in the family as Neurotalon.)


Hi to everyone out there. My human, Sarah, says that there are many many people you can reach through this computer thing. I don't know what she means, because I've walked up behind this computer thing -- and coughed a hairball or two on top of it, and let me tell you, it's not touching anyone. But then humans are weird that way. I mean, it's like the whole thing with water. what sane species keeps water in their lair, ready to dump on them at a moment's notice. They could just lick themselves clean like normal people, or have their friends lick them, at least. I mean, it's fun and no sudden water on head.

But Sarah-human is looking over my shoulder, and anyway, I didn't mean to make this a post about humans. You know, I'm not complaining. Oh, well, okay, I'm complaining, but it's not that bad. They give us food twice and a day and everything, even if Havey eats most of it. Of course, I can't figure what they put into those cans. I've never seen animals that shape running around. Perhaps they just press squirrels really well? Sometimes I have nightmares where those wheel shaped things are spying on me with beady little eyes. They have purple fur, and they hate me, becaus ethey know I'm going to eat them some day. But then my tail... Uh... no, Sarah, I don't need to see the vet for more valium. Whatever gave you that idea?

Sarahhuman says if I'm going to blog -- like it was my idea! -- I might as well promote her stuff, so look, Sarahhuman has books out this month. And last month and things. Only she doesn't write as Sarahhuman -- apparently there's a lot of them, though I've never met another one -- but as Sarah Hoyt, where she has this great book called Gentleman Takes A Chance. It's all about this cat called Not Dinner and how brave he is and the adventures he has, though there's some boring parts about a guy who changes into a dragon and a girl who changes into a panther some ancient canine trying to kill them or something and this whole courtship thing humans do, but they don't yowl or anything, so it's boring. Then there's one called Dipped, Stripped And Dead about this cat named Fluffy, though Sarahhuman says it's really about some girl who refinishes furniture and dates this hot policeman and solves mysteries. Whatever. It's written under Elise Hyatt, because Sarahhuman was asked to have another name, like when you go to the humane society and they give you a name. Let me tell you about that.

They called me Tootsie. TOOTSIE! As if it weren't obvious that my name was Euclid. And they were going to put me down till Sarahhuman and Danhuman and their two cubs came and rescued me at the last minute. My tail was so scared that it's never been the same since. I can't sleep without its sneaking up on me and trying to strangle me, and then Sarahhuman makes me swallow valium, which only makes the tail take advantage of my confused state and it just isn't fair.

But Sarahhuman is coming again, and if she reads this she'll say I need to see the vet, so let's keep that between us. Buy her books, because then she buys us kibble and toys and stuff, and is too busy to think I need valium.

Till next time.

Euclid Hoyt

Maaaaaan. I’ve been invited to two anthologies in the past week, and it’d be so fun to do both of them, but I swore to myself I wouldn’t accept any more anthology invitations until next October. And I was wibbling on one, at least, because I’d been told about it before my No More Anthologies rule, but I remembered I had to do a proposal (for more Inheritors’ Cycle books) between writing WORLDBREAKER and RATTLESNAKE DANCES next spring, so nooooooooo, no anthologies for me. *tries to stay smart* :)

The book signing went pretty well, I think. Sold around 20 books, which isn’t bad for Fairbanks, and saw one friend from the North Road where I grew up whom I hadn’t seen in probably 20 years, plus another one who had no idea I was writing for a living, and did a wonderfully classic double-take when he saw me. :) And a third whom we had no idea was living in Fairbanks, but who is in fact actually working part-time at the B&N, so that was all-around awesome.

Ted, more than once, went dashing off to the shelved books to get copies of books I’d sold all the copies of (HEART OF STONE and THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, mostly) from my little display table. Ted is an awfully good guy.

One woman, the mother of a fan who lives in Chicago, came by with a bag full of books that her daughter’d sent to have signed, so that was awesome. Equally awesome was the fact that the grandmother accompanying the mother saw fit to move two large display/signs so people could actually see me when they came into the store. :)

Another gentleman whose wife had gone to UAF’s creative writing program told me the story of how they’d met when she’d picked him up off a fantasy bookrack at a used bookstore. :) She’d apparently come to Alaska with a fella, and they’d broken up shortly after arriving, so she’d gone to drown her sorrows by stopping by the bookstore, and found someone she knew to talk about it to. She said, “I guess I’m free to date now. Maybe him,” she said, gesturing to my storyteller. “He’s kind of cute. Tell him he should ask me out.”

“Ah!” said the friend, “that’s my friend John! John! Ask Mary out, she thinks you’re cute!”

That was thirty years ago. :)

Anyway, so it was a good day. We did a very little bit of shopping before the signing, but there were no mad crushes of people (though the parking lots were all crammed full), and we had a specific shopping list, so it was pretty strategic strike. That’s the only kind of shopping I like to do anyway, so it was all good. :)

PENDANT PRODUCTIONS PROUDLY PRESENTS:

Original art by Paul Leclerc for Pendant Productions

THE KINGERY, episode 3x07 - "Forward Momentum"

Devi wrestles with detox and rising business while Regina scares Roberts and Tommy starts the war!

"The Kingery" is a serialized, full-cast, ongoing sci-fi crime drama. Available for free download in .mp3 format, or as a Podcast!

Also available -- a commentary track with the director and writer!

iTunes link:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=250780534

Podcast feed:
http://www.pendantaudio.com/kingery-podcast.xml

Download link:
http://www.pendantaudio.com/kingery.php

It's a long story, so pull up a comfy cushion and sit back.

About two years ago, Dad discovered he had very early prostate cancer -- the PSA wasn't even out of normal range, although elevated from his previous level -- and elected to do external beam radiation plus brachytherapy (implanted radioactive seeds). All went well, he was declared free of any cancer cells, and was now in the monitoring period.

Then about a month ago, he discovered that he had developed a rare complication -- as in 1% or less of the men treated with this combination -- called rectourethral fistula. It's about as obnoxious as it sounds. Because his fistula was located so far distally, he is not a good candidate for immediate repair, plus the surrounding tissues are still damaged from the radiation as well. They decided on doing just an ostomy now, to bypass the colon and give one side some rest. The surgeon ended up doing an ileostomy, which is proximal and bypasses the entire colon (in contrast to a colostomy, which uses some of the colon and just bypasses the distal portion). The surgery went well, the patient was walking around within 24 hours, and then the trouble started: he developed ileus, in which the gastrointestinal tract goes on strike. It stops peristalsis, and nothing moves. This leads to bloating which can be extremely dangerous, so they kept him in hospital with nothing by mouth except his pills and sips of water.

For two weeks, he had nothing by mouth and only an NG tube. Eventually, things started up and calmed down, and he was released this past Monday.

Before the surgery, they had come for a visit, so I'd asked if we could bring the Thanksgiving meal to them. This turned out to be a good idea.

I took vacation this week, and cooked the potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, succotash, rolls, stuffing, pies, and packed an oven-ready turkey. We arrived at their house at noon yesterday, shoved the turkey and stuffing into the oven, and sat back. When the turkey got close to "done", we reheated all the other stuff, baked the rolls, and had ourselves a nice little dinner. We digested, and had the pies. We watched some episodes of "The Mentalist", and got to sleep.

Today is my younger nephew's birthday, so they came over for lunch, ice cream and cake, and presents. Grandpa is resting quietly, as he still has episodes of not-feeling-wellness, and is also tired easily, but at least Grandma doesn't have to cook anything.

And now we're off to walk up and down the road, burn off some sugar-enhanced energy, and relax.
There will be more leftovers later, with some vegetable tempura, and pies.

Happy Thankful Day to all, and to all a good piece of pie!

A last-minute reminder that I will be signing books at the Fairbanks Barnes & Noble from 1-4pm today!

(God, I hope at least a few people show up!)

Here's why:

http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=TopStories&id=20091127/4b0f6ae0_3421_13345200911271113162678

His 6yr old neice, his twin sisters and another relative. This son of a bitch needs to die slow and in excruciating pain.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and sundry!

Yesterday we bundled off to see the Forbeses, who are old family friends of mine, and spent a splendid three hours or so talking and being entertained by their 7-month-old son, who was Absolutely Fascinated by Ted. We think it was the goatee. :) And we also ran into another friend when we stopped for lunch, so yay for small towns. :)

The house is very warm with the fire going and the oven having been on since about 8am, and I have the terrible sleepies. I may be forced to go for a walk, even though it’s 5 degrees out. OTOH, 5 degrees feels pretty warm after -25. *laugh* Ted, on…Monday, I guess, when it’d warmed up, said, “See! I told you we’d acclimatize quickly! Our blood thickened right back up!” I told him I didn’t think it was that our blood had thickened at all, just that 30 degrees warmer is in fact an awful lot warmer. If it had been 5 when we got here, not -20, we’d be whining about how miserably cold 5 degrees was. :)

I’m terribly confused by being hours and hours behind people instead of hours and hours ahead. I’ve gotten used to being on Irish time and it’s bizarre to think the east coast is currently four hours ahead of me instead of five hours behind. My tiny brain cannot handle it!

To one and all. Me? I'm gonna eat my cheeseburger for breakfast. go to the movies. come home. finish cleanin the grill. prep the steak and porkchops for supper, then relax for a bit and then cook em.
Tomorrow is our actual turkey day din din. We postponed it a day since pops is on call today. Doesn't mean he'll actually work..just means that it would be unfair to him to get called out today right before thanksgiving dinner is ready. So..tomorrow.

My mom told me while we were walking the dog earlier that she sees gray hairs on the back of my neck. I'm only 36 people. not supposed to go grey for another bleedin decade. So there.

*sulking*

May today be full of love, regardless of what's on your table.

Hey all! I'm new to the community. I've been working on a project I figure might be of interest to some of you :)

Back in July/August I teamed up with SF/F novel writer Michael Jasper, and we put together an entry for Zuda.com (DC Comics' webcomic imprint)-- our comic IN MAPS & LEGENDS was accepted and it's been running in the November competition for a few weeks now!

Basically, if our webcomic comes in first place (they count votes, ratings, favorites, views & comments), we get a contract to continue to serialize the story. All that good stuff. We’ve already got our foot in the door, getting this far, but at this point it’s up to voters (and anyone you can pass it on to~) to keep us at #1. So far there has been a LOT of hand-wringing this month. (You can check out the current rankings here. It's been a tight, tense race so far.)

Here’s a quick run-down of our story:
Kait doesn't know why she gets up in the middle of the night to carve a map onto the wall of the spare room of her apartment. Before she can finish it, though, a strange man named Bartamus shows up at her place in the middle of a wintry night, claiming to be from another, dying world that desperately needs Kait’s help.

So if you like curvy girls who glare a lot, maps, and the potential for some major steampunk, take a look! (check out the airships in the background of the last page-- there'll be a lot more of that if we win!)

If you haven't voted at Zuda before, I know the site can be confusing, so I put together a quick image tutorial on how to vote. Hope that helps.

The competition only lasts for November, so please vote before the month is out! I've been posting extra art and teasers at my site, too: http://www.niki-smith.com/
Thank you in advance! Spread the word! Let's win this!

Zuda's got a bunch of SF/F/H comics being serialized on their site, so check it out in any case.

A few of ‘em, anyway. Fat ravens, Books My Friends Wrote sighted in the wild at B&N, a layered turtle cheesecake, sunset, stuff like that. :)

(x-posted from the essential kit)

Once in a very great while, I am able to feel privileged to read a masterwork. I felt that way when I read The Riddlemaster of Hed and The Tombs of Atuan. I felt that way reading Rachel Neumeier’s The City in the Lake.

It is likely that I wouldn’t have found this book, even though I find myself reading even more young adult (YA) fantasy, except that I ran into Rachel at Windycon, and she gave me a copy to read. Frabjous joy!

Oh, boy. From the very first page, I got the same sense of being present at the unfolding of a wonder that I received reading Ursula LeGuin, Patricia McKillip, Peter Beagle, Lynn Abbey and the other great modern fantasists, or Cecelia Holland or Dorothy Dunnett, great writers as well.

I am here to tell you that this is a great book, and it is a wonderful read. It should not be restricted to young adult readers, either. The themes and dimensions of the story resonate well with young adult readers, and also the most adult of us.

There’s a City in the lake, beside which a city has been built. As in Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber, this city is more than just a single place, it spans all of existence and is the bedrock upon which the entire universe is built. There is evil in the world as well, and the evil wants to devour the power that is intrinsic to the City.

The evil is personified in a woman, sorceress and perhaps demon. She bears a child to the King of the City, and then leaves, abandoning her son.

There is a girl-child named Timou, fathered by a mage named Kapoen, who decides, when her father disappears, to seek him in the City. Timou has grown up in a small village, learning wizardry from her father, and the customs and culture of a small village from her surroundings. Yet she’s different, apart, and sees herself that way.

On her way to the City, and once she arrives, Timou immediately finds herself embroiled in the almost hieratic play that unfolds when the King’s legitimate son, the heir to the throne that the sorceress covets for her own, bastard son, disappears, followed shortly after by the King’s own disappearance.

The book is extremely visual, and could be a terrific fantasy film.

As the characters move through the plot, they grow and change, in some cases maturing, and in some cases learning who they really are, for the very first time.

I think this is, or should be, an award-winning book.

I think you should run right out to your local bookstore, or jump right onto Amazon and buy it.

Then you, too, can have the experience of wonder and awe at reading what is sure to be considered a masterwork in the future.

Agghlg. Dry Alaska is dry. I could sleep in a tub of lotion and I would awaken with all the lotion having schlucked into my skin and I would still feel dehydrated. This is not an aspect of Fairbanks that I miss. Nor is the early dark, though that’s not so bad right now. The sun’s gone down in Barrow and won’t be up again until late January, but Fairbanks still has almost eight hours of light. It won’t be until the solstice that it’s down to three. Still, when it’s full-on dark by 5:15, I do find myself getting pretty sleepy.

I do miss the amazing white frosted trees and the indirect gold sun and the pale blue skies that come with extreme cold and dry. Not enough to live here again, you understand, but it is absolutely beautiful.

We had a smashingly good Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. Turkey and ham and stuffing and corn and green bean casserole and mashed potatoes and three kinds of pie (oh man, Ted’s mom made a strawberry rhubarb crumble to die for), and everyone seemed to have a good time as we ate too much. We watched movies, played cards, and did a small gift exchange. We now have a gift certificate to the comic shop. I know what *I* want to spend it on, but I’ll see if Ted can be convinced. :)

We filled up the car while we were driving around yesterday–$45 for 13ish gallons (which, in terms of gas prices in Ireland, is still dirt cheap), and it got us off on the topic of how we’d changed, living in Ireland. Ted said, “It does my head in to throw everything away,” a phrase which I thought was proof of change both in content and semantics. :) I don’t even know if there’s a recycling company *in* Fairbanks, but recycling cuts down on our garbage by about 70%, and composting takes care of another twenty percent of it, and after four years, we’re completely in the habit of it now. It’s extraordinarily weird to just throw things away.

And it’s equally odd to drive twelve or fifteen miles to get into town. I’ve become so very accustomed, whether in Longford or Cork, to living within walking distance (and in walking weather) of everything I need, that the idea of living somewhere as spread-out as Alaska is truly peculiar. But what *really* throws us is the size of the vehicles, and the fuel inefficiency of them. We were saying to each other, “If we still lived here, we wouldn’t own the Jeep anymore because of the price of gas,” but I wonder if that’s true. If we moved back here, we wouldn’t own a Jeep, because it would seem huge and awkward and gas-guzzling, but I’m not absolutely certain we’d have switched it out if we’d been living here all along.

Also, we went out to shop yesterday morning, with ‘morning’ being the operative word. The shops (which they refer to as ’stores’ here) are all open early and remain open until late. It’s very strange. And they think *I’m* very strange *indeed* when I say, “I don’t need a bag!” and whip out one of my little foldable cloth bags. :) But it drove me nuts, last time we were here, to keep getting plastic bags at the stores. So wasteful!

All right, off to lunch with friends, and then to make a cheesecake!

Last week (the week before? very recently, anyway), Harlequin Books–the parent company which publishes my Walker Papers novels–decided to try to take a chunk out of Ellora’s Cave profits and open Carina Press, an e-book-only press for…well. Smut*.

This past week, Harlequin has decided to jump on the vanity press wagon. They’ll edit and publish your book for the bargain price of something like $6K, and then they’ll take 50% of the royalties on a book that’ll never go into the bookstores. I could rant, but author Jackie Kessler does it so well I’ll just link to her, and then follows up with Harlequin’s response after the Romance Writers of America said, “Sorry, we can no longer consider Harlequin a legitimate publisher,” and the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Mystery Writers of America echoed them. Anyway, it’s a big mess and I’m absolutely agog that somebody thought it was a good idea**.

*Don’t get me wrong. Smut sells fantastically in e-book form. I’m in no way slamming it. If I were going to write erotica I’d almost certainly look at Ellora’s Cave as the first market. I’m just sayin’ that’s basically what they’re looking to sell.

**I really can’t actually believe anybody at Harlequin *did* think it was a good idea. Apparently HQN’s parent company needs money, and I can see somebody at *that* level deciding it was a good idea, but holy beans.