Here we are at #4 of my gift suggestions for readers, all books by veterans of Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy.

Arabella the Traitor of Mars is the third in a series by Hugo-winning author David D. Levine, beginning with 2016’s Andre Norton Award-winning Arabella of Mars.

The series features an alternative Napoleonic Wars, in which the sailing navies of Europe navigate between planets, Napoleon has set up an empire on Venus, and Britain has established a thriving colony on Mars.

Here’s the flap copy:

From David D. Levine comes Arabella the Traitor of Mars, the newest book in the Adventures of Arabella Ashby series.

Hail the conquering heroes!

The tyrant, Napoleon, has been defeated with Arabella and the crew of the Diana leading the final charge. But, victory has come at a tremendous cost. Britain’s savior, Lord Nelson, has not survived the final battle and the good people of the Diana must now return to London as both heroes and pallbearers.

At last husband and wife, Arabella and Captain Singh seem to have earned the attention of great men, ones who have new uses in mind for the Mars Company captain and his young wife. Both Company and Crown have decided that it is time to bring Mars into the folds of Empire, and they think Singh is the perfect man to do it.

Now, Arabella must decide between staying loyal to the man she loves and the country of her father or betraying all that she has known to fight alongside the Martians in a hopeless resistance against the Galaxy’s last remaining superpower.

Find the book at your friendly local bookstore, or at:

Powell’s

Barnes & Noble

Apple

Kobo

Amazon

{ 0 comments }

Here’s another photo from our 2019 calendar.  This is an interior view of something called the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood— lighthearted name, that— in St.  Petersburg, Russia.  It is built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by a nihilist bomb in 1881.

Alexander was progressive as autocrats go, and reformed the government and freed the serfs.  This, alas, was not progressive enough for the nihilists.  At the dying tsar’s bedside were his son and grandson, Alexander III and Nicholas II, who turned into reactionaries and brought the process of reform to a shuddering halt.  Irony abounds.

The church was built by the two heirs and is, as you can see, very tall and somewhat narrow. (Descriptions that also fit Alexander III and Nicholas.)  The architecture is medieval revival— there was a lot of that going on in the 19th Century (see the Houses of Parliament),  The exterior features brightly-colored onion domes.  Every so often as you wander through the interior, you look up and see an oculus through through which the Virgin Mary or Christ Pantocrator peer at you.  As seems normal for big Russian churches, the whole place is slathered in gold.

The walls have more mosaics than anyplace in the world, apparently, and it’s a shame I didn’t like them more.  They’re an uneasy mix of traditional and modern styles, a combination of bombast and treacle.  (Another apt description of the last two tsars.)

The church was decommissioned after the Bolsheviks took over in 1917.  In World War II it was used to store corpses just arrived from the front, then potatoes.  Though the church has been restored, it hasn’t been resanctified, and only a few memorial services are held there.

Incidentally, I have yet to handle a copy of the calendar.  I ordered a bunch of them on November 27, and by December 4 they were printed and shipped.  According to Federal Express, they were shipped from Chicopee, Massachusetts, and from thence went successively to Middletown, Connecticut, back to Massachusetts at West Springfield, then to Byron NY, Hammond IN, Chicago IL Burbank IL, Brady NE, and Henderson CO.  (I have not even heard of most of these towns.)  They are now en route to Albuquerque, NM, which means they may arrive on my doorstep sometime in the next week.

{ 3 comments }

Looking for something to read over the holidays?  Or something to give a reader friend?

Here’s the third recommendation I’m making of a book written by a Taos Toolbox veteran.

(And by now I suspect that, if your ambition is to write, attending Taos Toolbox might be a smart thing to do.  We really do produce writers.)

Lawrence M. Schoen has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, is a world-renowned authority in the Klingon language, and has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell awards.

The first novel in his Barsk series, Barsk: the Elephants’ Graveyard (Tor Books) won the Coyotl Award for Best Novel of 2015, and was nominated for a Nebula Award for novel.

Barsk is a planet inhabited by uplifted arboreal elephants, but Lawrence makes the idea of uplifted arboreal elephants plausible.  Here’s the cover blurb for the sequel, The Moons of Barsk.

High-concept science fiction, deeply human characters, and a weirdly wonderful story drive The Moons of Barsk, the sequel to the award-winning Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard

Pizlo, the lonely young outcast and physically-challenged Fant, is now a teenager. He still believes he hears voices from the planet’s moons, imparting secret knowledge to him alone. And so embarks on a dangerous voyage to learn the truth behind the messages. His quest will catapult him offworld for second time in his short life, and reveal things the galaxy isn’t yet ready to know.

Elsewhere, Barsk’s Senator Jorl, who can speak with the dead, navigates galactic politics as Barsk’s unwelcome representative, and digs even deeper into the past than ever before to discover new truths of his own.

I have not been provided with links, but since Moons of Barsk was published by Tor, I’m going to assume it’s available wherever fine books are sold.

UPDATE: The author has helpfully provided Amazon links:

Kindle: http://mybook.to/TMOBkin
Audio: http://mybook.to/MoBaud
Hardcover: http://mybook.to/MoBhc

{ 1 comment }

I write about my Wild Cards story “Witness,” touching on the Red Scare, agent of Moscow Christopher Marlowe, and other UnAmerican Activities.

(Try not to look at the photo at the top of the page, it might scald your retinas.)

{ 2 comments }