Mystery Monday: Away With the Fairies, by Kerry Greenwood

Title: Away With the Fairies, Phryne Fisher mysteries #11, by Kerry Greenwood.  241 pages.
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2001.
Source: Library

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my library?  Books all over the place, and free for the borrowing.  No risk if you don't like it, so try anything that catches your fancy!  And that was how I first read this book, which was the first of the series I read (if you can follow that: this book, which is #11 in the series, was the first of Greenwood's books I read).  I decided to re-read it after having read most of the preceding books, just to see what it felt like to see the story with the backstory in my head.

Summary:
Set in between-the-wars Melbourne, Australia, Phryne's latest adventure starts as a pleasant distraction from missing her lover.  Lin Chung is on a silk-buying trip to China, and investigating the death of a writer and illustrator of cloying fairy stories is a bit of amusement for the wealthy and unusual Phryne.  To learn who might have done the dastardly deed, Phryne takes a job at a women's magazine.  But the fun is taken from her investigations by the growing awareness that something very bad has been happening to Lin Chung.

Review:
This mystery is two mysteries, held together of course by the fact that it is Phryne (whose name is pronounced "Fry-knee") investigating both.  It's a tricky balancing job for an author.  Greenwood resists the temptation to make the two intertwine in any way; instead they continue to run in parallel.  It's up to the reader to track both and care about both.

That, of course, is the hazard: we inevitably care about one more than the other, and, like Phryne, we soon find ourselves more concerned about Lin Chung than about the murder of a woman who doesn't seem to have been as pleasant as her little fairy drawings would suggest.  This also leaves us (or Greenwood) with a problem, as the Lin Chung story is treated as a side story (this is, after all, a murder mystery).  Yet I felt like wrapping up that one was much more of an important denouement than was the unveiling of the murderer.  In all honesty, I just wasn't that concerned with the murder (much as Phryne herself must have felt, though she drags herself out of bed to tie up the loose ends--a real sacrifice, given that her bed is where Lin Chung is by that point).

On a final note, though I definitely count the Phryne Fisher books as cozy mysteries, they do have more sex in them than most cozies (at least one good bedroom scene per).  I'm not sure the scenes add much, though they are fun.  We are very much aware that Phryne is unashamedly a sexual being without ever setting foot in the bedroom--she exudes sexuality, and makes total, unabashed use of it when needed.  The level of detail on the reunion with her lover, while a very long way from erotica, is unnecessary, and some may find it distracts from the generally light nature of the book and the series.

Full Disclosure: I borrowed Away With the Fairies from my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Flash Fiction Friday: The Cartographer's Potion

We're back at last to the Wendig Challenges. This was another random-title generator, and had a great set of words to select from. My offering, at 997 words including title.

The Cartographer’s Potion

The Cartographer gazed at the parchments on the worktable. A frown further creased his age-furrowed forehead. There was something missing, something that would make the maps live. He wanted to make them more than just bits of parchment with lines on them.

“It wouldn’t hurt if they could stand up to being rolled and folded and stuffed into a saddlebag in the rain, and take no hurt,” Lord Alfus suggested.

“You don’t want much,” the Cartographer replied.

“You’re the mage.”

“I am a cartographer.” He rubbed a shaking hand across his aching forehead.

“A cartographer. Yes.” Lord Alfus shifted in his chair, the mail shirt he never removed clinking slightly. “But you were a mage first.”

The Cartographer said nothing. His life was in this man’s hands, and it would be worth little if he did not produce results soon. He smiled grimly, though only in his mind where the lord could not see. His life was worth little in any case. Had the task he’d been set been one less to his taste, he’d have refused and died with a smile.

But to be ordered to produce the best maps ever made! To be given whatever help and resources and time he needed to gather the data and interview travelers and compare every map he could find to expand the limits of knowledge! Only one thing he had not been given. The Cartographer could not himself travel the world and gather that information firsthand. That right, however, was something Lord Alfus could neither grant nor withhold. He glanced down at his legs, withered and useless from a disease no magic could cure. He hadn’t long now. He could feel it.

The Cartographer reopened the long-running debate within himself. Lord Alfus had stolen his freedom for these last years of his life, and set him to serve the very ruler who had conquered and destroyed the Cartographer’s people. For that, he must be hated. The loss of home and freedom could not be forgiven.

And yet.

At home, the Cartographer had had nothing. Crippled by disease, he had been left a beggar. Lord Alfus had somehow learned what he was, learned what his own people had not known or understood, and had brought him here and made him a scholar once again. A captive scholar.

He looked across the room at a small cabinet in the corner. As a scholar, he had done more than make maps, though cartography was his first love. The cabinet held the product of years of study and experimentation. He could make the maps live, but someone must die to do it. Who should die was a decision the Cartographer could not yet make.

Who should die first, he reminded himself. Whatever he did, he would die, and soon. And the maps would live, and the world would know what he had done.

As bargains with demons went, it wasn’t bad.

#

Lord Alfus mingled with the lords and ladies of his realm, goblet in hand. Such parties bored him, but they allowed the nobles to show off to one another, and to demonstrate their loyalty to the crown. That was important.

If the smile he wore could be called supercilious, most saw it as the condescension of great man to his people, and were flattered by his attentions. He made a point of speaking to each person in attendance.

The Cartographer was not present. The strange little man was nearing death, and no doubt did not care to spend what little strength he had left at a party. Alfus could not have said how he knew the man was dying, but he felt it. He thought it, and put the thought aside. It was of little moment, now that he, Lord Alfus, ruled all the civilized lands.

He smiled again, and turned to the man next to him. “And have you repaired the damages to your roads from the spring flooding, Sir Garreg?”

#

In his chambers in a distant part of the castle, the Cartographer laid a shaking hand on the pile of maps. He could do no more. His fingers would not hold the quill. He could barely raise a goblet to his lips without spilling the contents.

Two goblets stood on his table. One held watered wine, laced with something he had concocted to ease his pain. From time to time he took a sip, though never enough to prevent clear thought. He gripped the goblet with both hands to quell the shaking. Between drinks, he sat as though sleeping.

He did not sleep.

#

In the immense Royal Gallery, Lord Alfus patted his stammering noble on the shoulder. “Well done, Sir Garreg. Your tenants must be grateful to have such a lord.”

As you must also be, he had no need of saying.

The knight moved hastily away, dismissed and relieved to so be. Lord Alfus looked about to see who else needed his attention. His eye fell on the one man who failed to fear him, and he frowned. That must change, and soon.

Thinking of his plans, he raised the goblet to his lips and drank deeply.

#

The Cartographer felt the change, and reached for his own goblet. Not the wine this time, but the plain stone cup that smoked a bit as it stood, though the contents were not hot. By force of will he brought it to his lips with his left hand, the right still resting on the maps. He felt the changes begin, and drank deeply.

A surge of power burned the last life from the Cartographer at the same moment that Lord Alfus collapsed. Under the now lifeless right hand, the maps shifted and changed.

When, two days later, someone remembered the Cartographer in the chaos of a realm without a ruler, they found his lifeless body lying beside a set of maps. Maps which crawled with the movements of every living creature in the realm.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass 2014

Progressive Book Club: Back at last!

Our Progressive Book Club has been on hiatus since summer while our fearless leader, M. L. Swift, dealt with life.  Now we're back, with a new format!


I have chosen to continue to use the PBC as a place to talk about writing books, and this month I'm featuring the book I'm currently reading (I"m not done with it, and indeed it's the sort of book you mark and return to while writing and editing).  With a warning that this one's for the adult writers, I present:
The Kick-Ass Writer: 1001 Ways to Write Great Fiction, Get Published, and Earn Your Audience, by Chuck Wendig.
Published by Writers Digest books, 2013.  278 pages.

Note: this is a discussion, not a review.  I may review the book when I finish it, but for now, I'm just going to talk about it.  Though that may be a distinction without a difference.

Half instruction manual and half inspiration, the book follows Wendig's famous (well, to those of us who follow his blog) model of lists of 25.  There are 32 lists of 25 things you should know about different aspects of writing, which by the way is only 800 tips, plus one in the intro.  I am not sure if there are another 200 tips in the Coda, or if Wendig cheated us.  I'll be taking that up with him.

Wendig divides the book into three larger parts: The Fundamentals, The Craft, and Publishing & Earning Your Audience.   I've been working my way through the first two, reading bits, marking them, and running back to my MS to put them into action.  I'm going to give you a few of my favorite bits, sort of randomly and with my own comments when I feel like it (reading Wendig can cause randomness.  Also potty-mouth).

Quit quitting.  That one doesn't need any discussion.  As he says elsewhere, writers write.

Nobody sees themselves as a supporting character.  I liked this, because it was a reminder that even the minor characters are still people.  Keep in mind that they have a story and a life, even when it doesn't enter into the story you're telling.  Keeping this in mind might help me make all my characters more real.

The worst crime you can commit is to create a boring protagonist.   Wendig follows that one up a few paragraphs later with, "I don't care if he's a ninja, a lawyer, a detective, a doctor, a boat captain, or Captain Doctor Detective Stormshadow, Esquire--I want to know he is in some way capable."  Then he reminds us that "capable" and even "remarkable" aren't the same as "perfect."  Okay, I especially like this one because I suddenly really want to write a story about Captain Doctor Detective Stormshadow, Esquire.

And a final bit, that makes a lot of sense to me where I am in my editing right now, about scenes:
Every scene's existence must be justified.

On the one hand, this list approach (each header gets one 5-10 line paragraph to explicate it) is limited.  But for me, quite frankly, that's part of what makes it work.  Little, highly concentrated, bits of advice that I can take in and cope with and mark and come back to.  I have a short attention span these days.  Or a limited memory. Whatever; it works for me.

Oh, and the thing's funny.  I keep reading bits to my boys, just because I want to share the laugh.

Is that a review after all?  I can't do that!  I haven't finished the book!

###
Just in case this really was a review:
Full Disclosure: I purchased The Kick-Ass Writer at my own expense, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."