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Boxing Day Guest Blog by Author Angus Donald

Sunday, December 25th, 2011

We are thrilled to have one of our favorite authors Guest Blog for us today! Thank you, Angus Donald!

BOXING DAY

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even . . .

“Good King Wenceslas” is one of my favourite carols; I belt it out in a freezing English country church, my breath pluming before my face, almost every Christmas. And yet, while I’ve been singing it for forty years now, today, when I began doing research for this blog, I realised something about the old carol that had never occurred to me before: “Good King Wenceslas” is not so much about Christmas but about Boxing Day.

Boxing Day is the term used in the United Kingdom for the day after Christmas Day – the 26^th of December, a public holiday. It is celebrated in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in many former British colonies around the world but not, as far as I know, in America. Its origins are disputed – some speak of church alms boxes in medieval times which were opened by the priest and the coins within distributed to the poor at this time – but most probably the etymology of Boxing Day lies in the old feudal tradition that the lord of the manor should give gifts to his servants on this day. A “box” was a gift given by a superior to an inferior. In the 19^th century, the rich who lived in grand houses would allow their servants to have the day off on the 26^th of December (after they had cooked, served and cleared up the great Christmas Day feast) in order to visit their families, and the workers would be given “Christmas boxes” containing gifts of money or food to take to their less well-off relatives. Indeed, Victorian department stores sold ready-made parcels for employers to buy and give out their servants.

The tradition lives on in some 21^st century British companies in the form of a Christmas bonus, and in the still-extant custom in Britain of giving tradesmen who regularly visit the house – such as the milkman, the postman, the “binmen” (rubbish-disposal people) or the paper-boy – a small cash gift on Boxing Day as a thank-you for the year’s work.

In modern Britain, Boxing Day, an official holiday enjoyed by everyone in the country, is marked by a number of important sporting contests: football (you would say soccer) matches, horse racing events, and even fox hunting meets – although pursuing foxes has been illegal in Britain since 2004 and the hounds now follow a running man dragging a scented bag. Nevertheless, the traditional Boxing Day sight of all those hearty riders on huge glossy horses – the mounts stamping and champing in the cold air, the men marvelously bold in their scarlet coats, sipping hot mulled wine and calling out to old friends before the excitement of the hunt begins – always gives me the warm feeling that I have slipped a couple of hundred years into the past.

In my family, Boxing Day is the day of the Big Walk: after gorging on Christmas Day on roast turkey, cranberry sauce, hot gravy, roast potatoes and vegetables, and Christmas pudding with brandy butter and cheese and nuts and chocolate (not all on the same plate, I hasten to add) everybody feels like taking a bit of exercise the day afterwards and so we stir ourselves on the morning of the 26th, wrap up warmly and walk for ten miles or so around the frosty (sometimes snowy) Kentish countryside – before collapsing in front of the TV as the daylight fades, and gorging again on a late lunch of cold turkey, cranberry sauce, glazed ham, cold potatoes, cheese, chocolate . . .

For many people in the UK, Boxing Day is a shopping holiday, much like the day after Thanksgiving in the USA. Shops often offer huge discounts on normally expensive household products in the sales which begin on Boxing Day, and Britons turn out in their millions to snap up bargains. In 2009, 12 million UK residents attended the post-Christmas sales – which is twenty per cent of the total population! The queues stretch around the block as people patiently wait for the stores to open; and when they do pandemonium ensues. Injuries sustained in the stampede are not uncommon.

But it would be a shame if, in the commercially-minded 21^st century, we forgot that Boxing Day was originally a day on which those who have plenty give to those who are in need; we should remember that Boxing Day it is also Saint Stephen’s day, the Feast of Stephen mentioned in my favourite carol. Wenceslaus – who was in fact a 10^th century Duke of Bohemia – ventured out on the Feast of Stephen to give a poor man food and wine and winter fuel; personifying the true spirit of Boxing Day.

“Therefore Christian men be sure, wealth or rank possessing, ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.”

Below are Angus Donald’s Books

And his newest, Warlord, due out in July 2013

To read more about Angus Donald, and his book series The Outlaw Chronicles, about the legendary hero Robin Hood, visit his web-site, www.angus-donald.com.

Tags: Authors, Book Suggestions
Posted in Author Spotlight, Holidays and Special Dates, Musings | 7 Comments »

National Authors’ Day November 1, 2011

Monday, October 31st, 2011

The U.S. Department of Commerce recognized the date of November 1st as National Author’s Day in 1949. We think it is a holiday to be celebrated!

And what better way to celebrate it than with a Guest Blog post from our Author Friend, Jeri Westerson!

Being a Writer

By Jeri Westerson

I’ve just heard the announcement for the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature…and again, it wasn’t me. Well, I expected no less. I don’t write lyrical poetry or deep treatises on the state of humanity. I write what is sometimes sneeringly called “popular literature” by the illuminati. Genre. It’s not literary fiction and it’s not bestseller material. “I put the litter in literature!” But that’s not a truly fair assessment either. I know that Raymond Chandler, one of my literary heroes for being one of the creators of the hardboiled detective and giving us the white knight Philip Marlowe, tried for most of his life to get his work recognized as great literature. He got that recognition in England, but not in America. Nowadays they teach college courses on Chandler’s work. You just have to be dead to get respect in America, I guess.

Not that I’m complaining. I happen to have it pretty good. I get to write the kind of stuff I wanted to read; a hardboiled detective in a medieval setting. I still get to do all the fun historical research, write about that as well as the real history happening in England in the fourteenth century, but I also get to throw in a murder with a very clever detective with a layered angsty backstory. And weapons. We get to do some stuff with weapons; daggers, swords. Fun stuff. More on that in a minute.

I’m lucky that I have several novels in the series on bookstore shelves with more on the way. Even luckier that the sales from those books allows me to write full time now. That’s not always the case with my fellow authors, some of whom have far more books on bookstore shelves. (I cheat. I have a husband who supports us. My earnings pay for my travel and promotional expenses. No, it’s not the industry to get into if you want to get rich quick, J.K. Rowling notwithstanding. She’s one of the one tenth of one percent of authors in that league.) No, ladies and gentlemen, you do this because you love to do this. Nay, have to do this. You have stories to tell and you want others to step into the worlds you create, even if those worlds really did exist some six hundred years ago.

Some people think that writing an historical has its disadvantages. That detectives didn’t have access to the forensic science we’ve all become accustomed to. Something as simple as fingerprinting would have no meaning to a society that wasn’t oriented to specific identities, where people had surnames based on their occupations or looks. That even something as simple as a telephone or public transportation was not available to them as sleuthing tools. I see it differently. The limitations make it more of an interesting chase to me. What could he use better than his own wits? And the history itself serves not as a hindrance, but as a skeleton to hang my fiction on. Those of us who write historicals know that the readers for this genre are sticklers for accuracy. They want the authentic feel of the era. They want the history, the facts to be right, else why read it? And why write it? Surely if you don’t enjoy research this is the wrong genre for you to write.

I happen to come from a background not of historians but of parents who appreciated history and wanted to surround themselves with it, whether by filling their bookshelves with the best historical fiction of its day or with non fiction books of history. I was lucky to grow up in that environment, and even though my original career aspirations didn’t lean toward writing, I was allowed all of my creative outlets at home which led, eventually as an adult, to writing novels.

Part of the fun of writing about a distant time is getting to know it on an intimate level. You can only get so much from research in books. There comes a time when one must get one’s hands dirty to see what life was like.

For instance, my protagonist, Crispin Guest, is a disgraced knight turned detective on the mean streets of fourteenth century London. He’s a dark and brooding fellow and besides doing his personal penance by bringing bad guys to justice, he often finds his solace in the bottom of a wine goblet. Sometimes he partakes of beer and I wanted to know what that medieval beer tasted like. From what I read, it was a little rawer, a little more herby than what we are used to today, so I elicited the help of my home brewer husband. Since we started with the whole grain we had to allow the grain to sprout, making the house smell like we had started a mildew farm. Then we dried it, throwing it into a pillowcase and tossing it into ye olde dryer (because we didn’t have the drying houses in which to do that). The beer we came up with was less than tantalizing. But the experiment caused a snowballing of personal investigation. What was the food like? How did it feel to wear medieval clothing? How did it feel to use medieval weapons?

I am fascinated by medieval weaponry. Consequently, I have become the proud owner of a broadsword and a few daggers, as well as a helm, battleaxe, and a flail (one of those nasty war weapons with a spiked ball on a chain attached to a stick. Sweet!)

As soon as I was in possession of the sword I naturally wanted to try it out. It was October and there were plenty of pumpkins around. I set up a few on posts in my backyard.

Now a broadsword is one of those weapons that speaks to me of the Middle Ages. This was the weapon that played a role in deciding national borders. Shaped like a cross, it was the weapon of choice to impose Christianity into regions of the Middle East. It was the ultimate if not Freudian of masculine symbols.

A broadsword is sharpened on both edges of its blade (unlike a knife that has one sharpened side). It is used one-handed, for the most part, the other hand being occupied with a long dagger called a main-gauche or a small shield known as a buckler. When you swung your blade you made the swash while you knocked your opponent with the buckler, hence swash-buckling. A broadsword is not elegant like a rapier or quick like a foil. It isn’t used in the same way. It is primarily a chopping weapon. It’s a sort of whack, whack, rest. Whack, whack, rest. Not what you see in the movies. It is 44 inches long and weighs about three pounds. Very handy as weapons go.

And so, when I came to attack my pumpkins, I swung at them. Even though the sword is not sharpened, an easy swing handily scalped them but good.

But a pumpkin, for all its head-like appearance, is not a head, so I needed bone to get the true feel of warfare. And then it occurred to me that I would also like to try out my daggers to see how it would feel to stab someone. Strangely, I could get no volunteers for this.

So I went to Costco.

Now it’s not easy picking out your victim, although it’s a little easier when you look for him in the meat department. I got myself the biggest slab of beef I could find.

When I brought it home, my victim’s body was already prone, lying there innocently on the butcher block. How to attack it properly? There was no help for it. I needed the fellow to be upright. I glanced toward my backyard window and spied my son’s wooden swing set.

First, I must explain that my son wasn’t home. No one was home but me and my meat victim. I only hoped that the neighbors weren’t peering out of their windows into my yard when I decided to get all CSI out there. Although, if they had witnessed the pumpkin beheading, they were already used to closing their shutters and waiting for it all to be over.

First thing I did was nail it up there and attack it with the dagger. My daggers are sharp and the blades went in cleanly. Of course, Sir Loin of Beef was not struggling, but that was okay. I could extrapolate the rest. Next I wanted to feel the blade against the bone. I lunged. Very hard. Lots of spine chilling scraping there. Yes, very tough if you had a small blade like this and managed to catch a rib.

After stabbing it a few more times at a few more angles, it was time for the sword!

I cocked back the sword one-handed and gave it a good whack. Right through the bone on the first go and into the wooden post. Wow. That was fun. Another! Yup. This guy was dead. Really dead. Really most sincerely dead.

It was a good day.

But now I was left with this slab of hacked up meat, hanging limply from one little nail and swinging in the breeze. How was I going to get rid of the body?

Simple. We ate him.

Yes, some think that writing is about sitting alone in one’s home office hour after hour, and for the most part I would have to agree. But there are moments…great moments…

—

Jeri Westerson takes time out of her busy day of swinging a sword to write her critically acclaimed Medieval Noir series with protagonist Crispin Guest. Her newest, TROUBLED BONES, was released October 11. You can read excerpts and discussion guides on her website at www.JeriWesterson.com or read what Crispin has to say on his own blog at www.CrispinGuest.com.

Tags: Authors, Book Suggestions
Posted in Author Spotlight, Musings | 9 Comments »

Author Spotlight – Roald Dahl

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

On what would have been Dahl’s 95 birthday, we are pleased to present this Author Spotlight by James L. (JimiJam)

Authors of children’s books are not necessarily few, nor far between. One need only consider shorter works, comprised largely of illustrations, to arrive at a list of hundreds upon hundreds of authors writing for the youngest of readers. There is certainly no shortage of authors writing lengthier tomes for children, although it seems that, of these, only a fraction find themselves elevated to an amount of noteworthy esteem. For all the tremendous authors who have written for children in years past, precious few compare to the fanciful and absurd Roald Dahl.

Born to Norwegian parents on September 13^th, 1916, in Cardiff, Wales, Dahl’s early years were marked by a pair of tragedies: when he was but 3 years old, his 7 year old sister, Astri, died of appendicitis; only a few weeks later, his father also passed away, stricken with a fatal case of pneumonia. Roald’s mother decided to remain in England, rather than return to her native Norway, in hopes that England’s excellent schools would instill in her son an education that would serve him well throughout his life. Unfortunately, his time as a student was less than kind. It is no wonder he found such strong validation in Dickens’ works, whose influence can easily be observed in Dahl’s own stories. Experiences with a number of harsh headmasters, teachers, and other authority figures, would later provide inspiration for characters in his novels, such as Aunts Sponge and Spiker in James and the Giant Peach (1961), the parents of the bad children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1963), and, perhaps most directly, the headmistress in his later work Matilda (1988).

It’s a point of fact that Dahl often included biographical elements in his novels. As a student of the Repton School in Derbyshire, for example, the Cadbury chocolate company would use the school as a testing grounds of sorts, sending boxes of chocolates for the students to try. Perhaps as an escape from the difficulties of school life, Dahl would imagine himself a chocolatier, and dreamt of impressing Mr. Cadbury with new flavors and styles. These flights of fancy would of course go on to fuel the creation of the great Willy Wonka. Another example is his 1983 book, The Witches, in which the main character is a boy of Norwegian descent, living in England.

Before his vocation as an author could be realized, Dahl first had to contend with his calling as an airman. Having enlisted with the Royal Air Force in 1939, by the time the war had ended he had reached the rank of Wing Commander, as well as having earned the title of Fighter Ace, for having scored 5 victories in aerial combat. His experiences as an airman would inspire his first children’s book in 1943, titled The Gremlins, a story about the mischievous imps that would sabotage airplanes. This work, first selected by Disney, and then later by Warner Brothers, was the basis for a few Bugs Bunny cartoons, as well as the general pop-cultural awareness of the superstition, which spread and continued for years after, not only in cartoons but the infamous Twilight Zone vignette and even the 1984 film Gremlins.

Following the war, Dahl’s personal life continued the tragic trends of his childhood. He and his wife, Patricia, lost two of their children to illnesses, and in 1965 his wife herself suffered a series of aneurysms, though she did survive and manage to struggle back to good health. Dahl himself lived on as well, contributing to enrich lives through his literature, as well as numerous charitable contributions which themselves remain a lasting legacy in England and abroad. Dahl passed away on November 23^rd, 1990, at the age of 74. One need not read the entirety of his bibliography to see how ever-present hardship was in his life; every one of his stories touches upon difficulties that seem insurmountable, and more often than not nearly crush the protagonists before something fanciful or surreal happens along and rescues them from their plight. Yet one need also look no further than the nearest Dahl novel at hand to find that, in his life as well as his stories, the ultimate power of goodness triumphs in the end.

I have always found Dahl’s approach to have been most exceptional, in that his narratives come from the perspective of childlike wonderment, worded not so much as a child would speak, but rather as an adult who has not lost an inch of contact with his or her inner child; often these narratives involve a vocabulary beyond that of the average speaker, and yet the phrasing and emphasis enthralls and inspires near giddiness at the concepts presented. The “storyteller” style of Dahl’s books evoke images of a wild-eyed and animated narrator, entertaining groups of children huddled ’round his feet, spinning fantastic fables with an eye for magic that only children can imagine or perceive. Yet, behind all this childish wonder and abandon lie the themes Dahl so often employed, notions quite a bit more adult than one might expect to find in a simple children’s novel. Perhaps it is that the boisterous delight is a sugar coating, and that these stories are by no means as simple as they appear. Dahl’s works are filled to the brim with moral lessons, touching upon justice, fairness, morality, karma, classism, heartbreak, abuse, neglect, and even death. To combine such mature themes with childlike wonder, and deliver them in a way that is entertaining and yet secretly contains such heartfelt and inspirational messages, elevates Dahl to the pinnacle of children’s literature.

Clearly, there is an amount of consensus on just how entertaining Dahl’s stories can be. No less than six of his

Image courtesy of www.teachingchildrenphilosophy.org

novels have been made into major motion pictures: The Witches, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). What’s more, dozens of his short stories have inspired productions in both the movie and television studios. He was also hired to pen a fair few screenplays, including such notable films as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the James Bond picture You Only Live Twice. These days, children’s stories being turned into movies is more prevalent than ever, and there are, of course, many fine children’s authors of worthy renown. But there is something singularly exquisite about Dahl’s oeuvre, and as I read it I am compelled to recall numerous volumes, written by others after his time, that harken back to his style, tone, and childlike sensibilities. From the Series of Unfortunate Events to Harry Potter, I find it difficult to think of a popular modern children’s story that doesn’t seem in some way a direct descendant of Dahl’s earlier works. While the genre of children’s literature is centuries old, and will, one hopes, continue to extend far into the future, the genre – and we as its readers – owe a great debt to the likes of Roald Dahl.

Tags: Book Recommendations, Book Suggestions, Members
Posted in Author Spotlight | 7 Comments »

Author Spotlight – Clive Cussler

Saturday, August 20th, 2011

Clive Cussler, Author Extraordinaire!

By Jade K. (Jade4142)

Action, adventure, oceans, foreign lands, beautiful women, and a man who just will do the right thing.

Clive Cussler was born in 1931 and started writing in 1965. He was 34 years old when he started his phenomenal writing career. If there are errors in his books, regarding geography, anything maritime or anything having to do with food or drinks, I haven’t found them. His research must be voluminous. He writes mostly fiction, and every single book of his that I’ve read has been one of those you don’t want to start at 9:00 p.m., or you’ll be up all night reading. Only your knowledge that there are more books in the series can convince you as you read that your hero is going to live through this book; he must live, since there’s another one about him, but it certainly doesn’t look that way right now.

That hero, in my view, is Dirk Pitt. Pitt works for NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency, as Special Projects Director. NUMA researches the ocean, its construction, its occupants, and its habits. They also raise lost ships. Pitt is an extraordinary NUMA member. He is a man who will do the right thing, whether his boss, Admiral James Sandecker, agrees or not. If the official route won’t get the right thing done, Pitt will do it anyway. And, of course, Mr. Pitt always succeeds. He shuts down a Chinese slave trade ring, raises the Titanic, finds a missing treaty that can change the entire future of the North American continent, and finds the nerve gas that can kill everyone in the world in minutes. His life is always in danger, and he’s often seriously injured. But Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt just won’t quit. If someone is hurting someone else, Pitt will stop it.

Cussler uses one device in his books that I don’t much like, but I guess when you’re something of the Grand Master of the action novel, you can do what you want. Cussler himself shows up in several of the Pitt books to rescue Pitt when he’s written Pitt into a corner he can’t get out of unless Cussler arrives in his catamaran to rescue him.

There are so far 21 Dirk Pitt books, and I own them all. I’m reading them in order this time, since each book refers to a previous book, and I want to have it all tidy. I will tell you, though, that Mr. Cussler didn’t release the books in exactly chronological order. He released Mediterranean Caper in 1973. That is not, however, the first book in the series. Pacific Vortex, published in 1983 but written before Mediterranean Caper, is actually the first book in the series. So if you want to read all 21 in chronological order according to the story, you have to start with Pacific Vortex.

Dirk Pitt

Pacific Vortex (1983), Mediterranean Caper (1973), Iceberg (1975)

Raise the Titanic (1976), Vixen 03 (1978), Night Probe (1981), Deep Six (1984), Cyclops (1986)

Treasure (1988), Dragon (1990), Sahara (1992), Inca Gold (1994), Shockwave (1996),

Flood Tide (1997), Atlantis Found (1999)

Valhalla Rising (2001), Trojan Odyssey (2003), Black Wind (2004),

Treasure of Khan (2006), Arctic Drift (2008)

Crescent Dawn (11‐16‐2010)

Cussler has written other action/adventures series as well, and I am in the process of collecting those. I have to have them all before I start reading them, so I can read them in order. He of course has a website and these lists can be found there, too. www.clive‐cussler‐books.com

The NUMA Files

Serpent (1999), Blue Gold (2000), Fire Ice (2002), White Death (2003)

Lost City (2004), Polar Shift (2005), The Navigator (2007), Medusa (06/2009)

Isaac Bell – Detective Series

The Chase (2007), The Wrecker (11/2009), The Spy (06/2010), The Race (09/06/2011)

The Fargo Series

Spartan Gold (09/2009), Lost Empire (08/31/2010), The Kingdom (06/06/2011)

The Oregon Files

Golden Buddha (2003), Sacred Stone (2004), Dark Watch (2005)

Skeleton Coast (2006), Plague Ship (2008), Corsair (03/2009)

The Silent Sea (03/2010), The Jungle (03/2011)

Cussler is much more than the grand master of the action/adventure novel. He actually is the director of a real-life NUMA. His NUMA researchers and volunteers focus on American maritime and naval history, and they do recover sunken ships. They have brought up the C.S.S. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship in battle; the Housatonic, the ship the Hunley sank; the U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania; the Cumberland, sunk by the famous Merrimack; the Confederate raider Florida; the Navy airship, Akron; the Republic of Texas Navy warship, Zavala, found under a parking lot in Galveston, Texas; and the remains of the Carpathia, the ship that braved icebergs to rescue the survivors of the Titanic. When they bring these ships up, they donate the rights to them to various non-profits, universities and governments. Cussler takes us with him on some of those adventures in The Sea Hunters and The Sea Hunters II. (http://www.numa.net/clive_cussler.html)

Cussler is an antique car collector, knowledge he imparts to Mr. Pitt, of course. He has his cars in a museum in Golden, Colorado. He lives part time in the mountains of Colorado and part-time in Arizona. He has a son named Dirk who has co-authored some the Dirk Pitt books, and you can see Cussler and his son on some of those book covers, with some of his antique cars.

Cussler’s books have been published in more than 40 languages, in more than 100 countries. He has about 125 million avid fans, and I’m one of them. One small voice in the wilderness, but avid in my admiration for this extraordinary man who creates extraordinary novels and devotes his life and resources to America’s maritime history.

Tags: Authors, Book Recommendations, Book Suggestions
Posted in Author Spotlight | 1 Comment »

Author Spotlight – Stephanie Barron

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Author Spotlight – Stephanie Barron

by Joy L. (vintagejoy)

I am extremely fond of cozy mysteries and historical fiction, including the works of Jane Austen. Stephanie Barron has combined all three into a wonderful series entitled the “Jane Austen Mysteries“. There are ten in the series; the first, titled “Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Being the First Jane Austen Mystery” and the eleventh to be published in September “Jane and the Canterbury Tale: Being a Jane Austen Mystery”.

Stephanie Barron, born Francine Stephanie Barron, has been a lifelong admirer of Jane Austen and has done an amazing job writing these mysteries in “Jane’s own words” that will really make you feel you are reading an original novel by Austen herself.

The series takes place during the early 1800’s against the backdrop of the political and social issues of the time. Barron has done an extensive amount of research about Jane herself, as well as the Napoleonic Era in France which is a large part of the early 1800’s. Two of her brothers were enlisted in the British military during the war with Napoleon. Although they are fiction, the books include relatives, friends, and places that are all accurate to Austen’s life.

The premise of the series is that the author, upon visiting some friends who were very distant relatives of the Austen’s, finds a box of manuscripts written by Jane in the abandoned coal cellar of the friend’s home. From the author’s introduction:

“What so struck them about these manuscripts, apparently written by Austen herself, is that they recount experiences heretofore unknown to Austen scholars. Narratives in the form of journal entries and letters to her sister, Cassandra, and intended for her nieces………..these manuscripts were never meant to be published. They are personal records of mysteries Jane Austen encountered and solved in the short course of her life.”

Barron is then asked to undertake the task of editing the notebooks for publication, which she does.

If you are interested in reading this series, it is my opinion that they are best read in order, as one builds upon the other with the characters and situations evolving.

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Posted in Author Spotlight | 2 Comments »

Author Spotlight: Barbara Hambly

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

The PBS Blog Team is please to announce a new feature we call Author Spotlight. A huge Thank You to Barbara (femmefan) for this great idea!

Author Spotlight on Barbara Hambly

By Barbara (femmefan)

Mystery. Historical fiction. Fantasy. Vampires. Sherlock Holmes. Graphic novels. Science fiction. Star Wars. Star Trek. Beauty and the Beast.

It’s quite an eclectic, something-for-everyone mix, with author Barbara Hambly as the common denominator. I discovered Hambly years ago with one of her Star Trek books, Ishmael. An odd crossover universe book, it was so faithful to the characters from both universes that it clicked for me, and I’ve followed her career ever since. I’ve read many of her titles although some, like the graphic novels or Beauty and the Beast, don’t appeal to me, while others are out of print and/or difficult to find, even with PBS as a resource.

Don’t get the idea that because Hambly is a prolific writer who works across many genres that she must be mistress of none of them. From outer space to ancient Rome, in unimagined worlds of fantasy, in mid-1800’s New Orleans or the pre-Revolution American colonies, Hambly maintains a sure touch with character, dialog, and story. Her prose is top-notch, with a wonderful clarity and careful word choices that say just exactly what the author wants to say.

That she performs meticulous background research is apparent; her college training in medieval history probably contributes to that inclination. What she does with that historical information, though, is amazing: she creates detailed worlds with characters who live and breathe there, who slip into their milieu with an ease and naturalness that pulls the reader right along behind in willing belief.

Settings and characters are often intriguingly complex. Don Simon Ysidro, vampire, is subtle yet dramatic, a heartbreaking blend of suave courtliness and deadly danger, who both loves and loathes his cold existence. Ben January, the “free man of color” in Hambly’s January series, is a black doctor who inhabits a world of both structured cruelty and unexpected goodness. In the fantasy Windrose Chronicles books, Joanna, the resourceful heroine (a type that Hambly favors) and Antryg, the wizard who is surely either demented or the wisest man alive, make a formidable pair.

Recently Hambly has turned to stories steeped in American history. The Emancipator’s Wife is a fictional treatment of Mary Todd Lincoln, while Patriot Hearts looks at our country’s early days through the eyes of some its most prominent women. One of those women, Abigail Adams, is featured in the history/mystery The Ninth Daughter (written as Barbara Hamilton).

Whatever the genre, although I liked some of her books more than others, I can honestly say I’ve never been disappointed by Barbara Hambly’s work yet–not even by The Bride of the Rat God, which was much better than its title and the cheesy cover art would lead you to think! I keep track of her series and upcoming titles, knowing I’ll want to read whatever is next. I hope that the featured books that follow will encourage you to judge for yourself.

(As a disclaimer, I probably should mention that I’m not a Hambly relative/dependent/hanger-on, nor am I on Barbara Hambly’s payroll. 🙂