Janny’s Comments (group member since May 10, 2009)

Janny’s comments from the Beyond Reality group.

Just finished Deep Black by Miles Cameron, totally wonderful sequel to Artifact Space - delivered a fabulous finish to one of the best SF reads I've encountered in years.

I read any story at the length it is written. If the writer does their job, it will finish early or late, but end exactly when it is meant to.

This book destroyed me. I can't read it again, it left my heart in shreds.

Fantastic to see Sarah Zettel's SF getting some love. She does quality work and it is a crying shame she hasn't truly taken hold and been discovered.

Read everything. It's worth it.

This was a spectacularly researched book, in every respect.

I had a bittersweet time reading it - she captured the time period for women so accurately, it felt like recalling my mother and her circle of friends when I was a child....life in an impenetrable social box...and it brought back memories so strong I wanted to scream. (recalling, at age 3, Mom putting on bright red lipstick and me, watching, thinking how much of that stuff did she end up swallowing, (ugh) and swearing to myself I would NEVER EVER put that stuff near my mouth - a promise I kept).

The author did this so well, It threw me back into those times, so kudos to her!

Likewise the space program...I have extremely vivid memories of the first pictures coming back from the Mariner missions - and the Mercury program - and Life Magazine's brilliant color pictures - then Apollo....I still have the newspapers/still remember that night of Armstrong's first step on the moon. HUGE.

So reading this fictional re-creation in many ways felt 'dulled down.' NOT the fault of the author!!! She was writing from the perspective of a scientific/math minded adult. But the juxtaposition of the crackling sparkle of a child's recall of that excitement made the novel feel deadened down.

I loved the way she presented the opening - the fall of the metorite, the impact of it, and the tension she created with the different stages of the event - totally brilliantly done!

I think the sequel will be a better fit for me, given that she's likely to take it beyond the fifties earth perspective and dial up the survival factors. So I'll be along for the ride for the next one.

All of these opinions are my very deeply personal response and the story is IN NO WAY deficient. I spent a bit of time sifting through my responses while reading, and this is what I arrived at.

Hidden Figures is such a sharp edged story - very very hard to top that aspect of a true story.

The concept of taking the female astronauts program and allowing women to go forward into space is a completely brilliant and worthy idea.

Kudos to Mary Robinette Kowal for giving it a fictional launch. What, indeed, could history have been, given the times?

Halfway through.

Got the book.

Back from the Bahamas, what an experience, I truly believe the people our team helped gave us back much more than we gave them. A privilege to serve their need, for sure.

I am back here to thank you at Beyond Reality for the privilege of interacting with the readers of Sorcerer's Legacy for your Book of the Month discussion. I've enjoyed your questions and responses, and was touched that you voted this title as your choice.

Happy reading on your next book - you have a wonderful group here, and it's been a pleasure.

Of further note: there will soon be a new paperback edition (UK/AU/NZ, but, alas, not yet N. America) with a brand new cover - one much better suited to that ugly one with the 'devil' and the naked spirit....I will be making a cover unveil, soon, once I know the pub date from HarperCollins Voyager UK.

Kathi wrote: "Thank you for joining us, Janny. I, for one, would love to hear the story of the “fluke set of circumstances combined with a dare” that led to this story being written.

Prior to reading this book,..."

Here you go, Kathi: it began with a painting, in a very very hot summer, when I lived in what amounted to uninsulated field hands' quarters over a colonial carriage house - tiny windows, dormer/not much air, slate roof and - airlessly hot in July/August. I was working on artwork to send to Worldcon in the UK, and customs forms had to be done over a month in advance. Since, at that stage of my career, I was improving so fast, the showpiece to that stage had to be NEW and up to the minute best of my ability. So to keep myself at the easel, I did a picture of a wizard and a woman in a FREEZING COLD setting....the title of the work was Icebridge by Sorcery....and it was just a fanciful fantasy image.

What happened: I had an art agent (since history) who was taking the artwork to England. I sure didn't have the bucks to go...and she was horridly persistent about 'how much to price the work for' - and I have a hard headed habit of never pricing a work before it is finished...so I kept fending her off. When she was due to show up to collect the art - it was not really done. I'd been working in acrylic, and none of the jewelry on the woman was finished - so I filled it in FAST in colored pencil, figuring I'd paint it in when it came back....so we had this deadlock going - on what to price it for, and me, not wanting to actually SELL a work I knew was not finished out.

The ONLY way to get this woman off my back was by invoking the ONE RULE I insisted on: no artwork connected to a LITERARY work of mine was ever for sale, PERIOD. But to pull that clause and hold that line: I needed a 'literary work' attached to the image.

QUICK!!! (she was due to pick up the art next day) I sat down and wrote 18 or so pages of a Heroine in Deep DooDoo/so deep, by gosh, NOBODY would figure a way out for her...took said partial manuscript, shoved it in a folder and slammed the file box door on it, so I thought, FOREVAH.

Well never say never....on comes August. It's still broiling hot in my garrett apartment. The little writers' group in Philly is due to meet to hash over manuscripts - and my place is this month's venue. It's been SO hot (this was before houses were airconditioned at all) nobody had written a thing....so here we are, a group of six or eight of us, with all the junk food, soda and candy, melting in my place, with NO manuscripts to read or critique. Nothing.

The gang got on my back: "Wurts, we KNOW you have something - here's this four drawer FILE BOX filled with manuscript, etc, and we SEE the corners of paper sticking out of that there drawer - cough it up, or we'll be eating junk food all day with nothing to read."

So I sez: HEH, let's give them that 18 pages of melodramatic drivel, and watch their faces...joke on them. This is NOT the usual Wurts manuscript, not a bit....carry on. DARE YA to take this one seriously....!!

Well, they loved it. They said, "We think this could fly." And I thought, dismayed, crap, I don't HAVE an ending....only then, fickle muse, fickle fickle imagination - the IDEA light came on....and I did.

This little story became my first novel sale. I have a standing bet: that I'd refund the price of the book to anyone who could read Ch 1 and second guess the finish. Nobody ever has....but one person did come up with a clever alternate.

The biggest scare I had was that someone would get the book and not finish it...so I made every dang chapter a cliffhanger to be sure. And that came back to bite me: complaints from readers who read it in the tub and never stopped until The End/emerged a shivering prune. Readers who began it on a Friday at a con, and read all night, and were too shot to go to parties on Sat....

Yes, my writing has changed a lot from this first start. Some, was the nature of the book itself - I never meant to write a story like this one to begin with. Some, the style is shaped by the story itself, and I tend to vary styles with the content of the tale. There will be a dramatic difference from the way this one was written, to the way I depicted Wars of Light and Shadows - because in the bigger work, there are so many layers and levels - it was necessary to slow down perception on the readers' part, because if the story was written in a 'faster' style, too much would be missed, and the huge reveals and the nuance of the depths that occur in the latter half of the series would be totally missed. My purpose in writing that longer work was very specific, and very different, and the entire first half of it is 'build' so that the unique concepts that emerge in the latter half make sense and have their designed impact. Sorcerer's Legacy just isn't that kind of a story, it can be read at a gulp and miss nothing.

Shel wrote: "Janny wrote: "I will be pleased to answer any questions you may have, though if there is a delay - I am on 'standby' with my local search and rescue team awaiting word on a request to serve in the ..."

The nice thing about books: they are very patient and will wait without losing a thing. Thank you for your nice words and taking time to stop in.

This group has ever been one of my favorites, so thank you all for voting this title as your book of the month.

It was my first novel, written out of a fluke set of circumstances combined with a dare - a story I could relate if you'd like.

It was also the book that caused Ray Feist to ask me to collaborate with him on creation of the Empire series.

I will be pleased to answer any questions you may have, though if there is a delay - I am on 'standby' with my local search and rescue team awaiting word on a request to serve in the Bahamas in Dorian's wake, which may take me out of the office for a stretch.

Kathi wrote: "I finished A Shadow in Summer and am looking forward to discussing both it and our SF read for August!

Now reading Playing God, a stand-alone SF novel by [author:Sarah Zet..."

Awesome to see you reading and enjoying Sarah Zettel's SF, she's so drastically underrated it infuriates me - great stuff!

I will put up two excellent but under the radar titles. One I've tried before but it's worth a second go.

For fantasy, Draigon Weather by Paige Christie. If you like broken heroes and an extremely unusual juxtaposition of awareness in a relationship with a strong co-heroine - where both parties see their circumstances from a radically different viewpoint - it's a 'dragon sacrifice' tale that stands the trope totally upside down. I loved it.

For SF - The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman - a literate and extremely thought provoking take on cultural appropriation and the subversive side of art. A book that has stuck with me over the years as a stand out read. Don't be put off by its obscurity.

This is a stunning book, not well known because it is released from a small press - but if you like a classic idea with a broken hero told with a stunning twist, here's a fantasy nomination to check out:

Draigon Weather by Paige L. Christie

For SF, this is a space opera with colorful characters that made me split myself laughing - and very daring handling of the timeline.

The Myriad by R.M. Meluch

Applause to Chris and Shel for stepping up - and thanks to Kathi - known you in this group for a long time (lurker more than poster) great team to keep us going!

Silvana wrote: "Thank you, Candiss and Nick!"

Awesome job, Candiss and Nick!

Jim wrote: "Binary Storm by Christopher Hinz is a SF adventure, a prequel to his Paratwa trilogy that was written & should be read afterward. It fills in some gaps & I really li..."

Wow, Jim, I didn't know that title existed.

This book totally, absolutely, start to finish gave me the creeps. CS Friedman is a master at this - I think it took me four tries to get into her Coldfire Trilogy. The amazing thing - despite the twisted premise that gives her characters power, the books are compelling reads. I finished them all.

Gutted. The light of a true human being and brilliant advocate of the imagination, and of humanity itself, gone. We are collectively dimmed.