Check-In: Where have I been and why have I been there?

So.

Y’all might have noticed that with the exception of the Insurgent countdown, I’ve been pretty much absent without leave. But as always, there are reasons, and I’m going to cover them in brief before resuming a semi-regular posting schedule.

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Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Reading This Week

1. Spots the Space Marine by M.C.A. Hogarth

I’ve held off on talking about the amazing fiction I’ve been sucked into and reading like my life depended on it, simply because I seem to suck royally at motivating myself to do so. Well, this one broke that block.

I have loved her tragic, but transcendent The Worth of a Shell; I have adored her stories about Jahir and Vasih’th, the xenopsychiatrists; I have faithfully slurped up every possible smidgen of Black Blossom she could throw at me: it’s like Emma with male aliens instead of female humans. It’s a fantasy of manners, and I want her to write a zillion more. And then there’s Spots.

I tried this book as an e-book first. Could. not. get into it. My paperback came from when I backed it on Kickstarter, and I pushed through the first four chapters and that was it. Hooked. The narrative zings along and you cannot put the book down without grumbling terribly at the requirement of doing so.

A 32-year-old mother is called up from the reserves and sent to supposedly in-the-middle-of-nowhere depot, which just happens to turn out to be practically on top of a crab breeding facility. I don’t know even how to describe this book. This is a family, a Marine family, in space fighting crab-like aliens that look eerily like their allies, the violinists. It’s a roller coaster, but it doesn’t feel like one; it’s that smooth and well-put-together.

Read it.

2. The art business book by M.C.A. Hogarth

The woman’s earning a living doing what I want to be doing. Enough said. Please consider funding this book through IndieGoGo.

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Uh...Kinda forgot to post these? Awake Fanfic

Reaction Shots: Red

Fandom: Awake
Author's Note: for lithiumlaughter
Title: The Bridge
Summary: Hannah didn't want to know. She was completely cut off from it, and it hurt too terribly much.

Hannah didn't really know what to believe. Maybe Michael really did somehow magically cross that barrier from one world into another where their son still lived.

But.

She didn't want to know. She couldn't stand to know, because she was completely cut off from it, and it hurt too terribly much.

She wondered sometimes why Michael was so much stronger, but he was the one who got to hold Rex and tell him he loved him one last time. "You're the last part of Rex I have," she'd told him. If she was ever brave enough to use that bridge again.

Tell him I love him.

I will.

---

Title: Orphan
Summary: Emma didn't even have the benefit of the normal warning signs.

Emma didn't even have the benefit of the normal warning signs. She figured it out after she went more than two months without a period.

Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh—

Outwardly, she was calm. That's how she was taught to be, and she saw no reason to change that now. She just had to tell her parents and think this through and write a letter of complaint to the manufacturer of her favored birth control.

—man. The man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with is dead. He's gone, and I'm—

She could do this. She could be strong and raise a child by herself. Mothers did it all the time, and so many of those kids turned out great. So many widows or divorcees who did just fine.

—pregnant.

Emma laid her head on her hands and cried.