Barbara's Blog

The year's longest night, but mild, sunny, and windy in Southern California. As an early Christmas gift, I got this, this morning - a nice, starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Set in Roaring ’20s Hollywood, Hambly’s outstanding sequel to 2021’s  Scandal in Babylon  showcases the author’s wit and her compassion for the underdog. Tinseltown glamor girl Kitty Flint has rescued her widowed British sister-in-law, Emma Blackstone, from a dismal paid companionship in England. Now Kitty’s constant companion, gofer, and Pekinese-brusher, plucky Emma wavers between longing for Oxford’s dreaming spires, where she hoped to study archaeology, and her fascination with corrupt Hollywood and her cameraman lover. Then early one morning, director Ernst Zapolya, an old boyfriend of Kitty’s, phones, wanting to speak to Kitty, but Emma tells him she isn’t home. Ernst says it’s about a matter “on which lives depend. Maybe many lives.” A murder ensues. In the search for a killer, Kitty and Emma mus

Between finishing up the semester, reading research papers, prepping the final lecture of the course (which has to change every semester, since the last part deals with, "Where are things now?"), getting enough sleep, and doing the necessary maintenance (exercise, physical therapy, meditation to keep myself more or less sane), it's been a daily choice: Do I write, or do I do the dishes? This is being written shortly before bed-time, after I've finished school-prep for tomorrow, which got pushed back into the evening so I could do some actual work, i.e. writing. (I'm sorry to say the dishes are still not done). I did have a lovely Thanksgiving with my family, and a second lovely Thanksgiving with my friends. Saturday, as I said in an earlier post, was the LosCon science fiction convention near the LA Airport. It was an easy Lyft ride in the days when I lived down there. Now... not so much. At least it wasn't raining. And what with one thing and another, the con

  Plans for appearances in the next couple of months - if there are no major emergencies or variant plagues in the meantime... NOVEMBER 26 - LosCon 48 - loscon.org/48/ - LAX Marriott in Los Angeles - The con is from the 25-27 (Thanksgiving weekend) but I'll only be there the Saturday, the 26th, signing books and participating on panels. Masks required, proof of vaccination required. FEBRUARY 17-19 - Gallifrey One Dr. Who convention - gallifreyone.com - also at the LAX Marriott - I should be there all 3 days, signing (I'm not sure which day) and being on panels and running around the halls in costume. Masks required, proof of vaccination required. SOMETIME IN MARCH - The Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Book Show - more information as I get it.

  My dad in uniform, probably sometime in the late '40s. 

  Here's a Halloween costume from years and years ago. I made it for a Costume-Con way back in the day: an Elizabethan werewolf. These days, my idea of a lovely Halloween is to turn off all the lights in the front of the house and watch Rocky Horror Picture Show in the back room. I was reminded, however, that I did actually at one point spend the night - actually 3 nights - in a haunted house. It was a bed 'n' breakfast in a town in Tennessee where I was researching my Civil War novel Homeland: I arrived late, about 10 pm, and was the only guest because it was off-season. I got in my jammies, got into bed, switched off the light, and I KNEW there was something in the room with me. I had NEVER experienced such a thing before, but I didn't have the slightest doubt what was going on. I turned on the light again and there was of course nothing there. Turned off the light. There was definitely something there. Turned on the light. Nope. Turned off the light. Whatever it was,

  Still more fun with research that has pretty much nothing to do with New Orleans at Christmas of 1840, or Hollywood in May of 1924... (or the Winterlands while I'm writing a Further Adventure for the first time in AGES...) Instead I've been reading Katie Hickman's wonderful book, "Daughters of Britannia," about the lives and experiences of British diplomatic wives and daughters - the ladies who got dragged willy-nilly to places like Constantinople in 1661 (What WAS the proper etiquette when calling on the Sultan's harem?) or Kashgar, Central Asia, in 1898 (COULD one purchase Marmite in Azerbaijan?). These ladies were not diplomats themselves, but got roped into doing everything from coping with local servants (" 'Why do grammars only teach one such phrases as Simply through the courage of the champion's sword when what one wants to say is, Bring another lamp? ' ") to sewing shirts for British sailors who have been ransomed from the loc

  Happy Birthday, John! (Still love your work).

  While questing for a picture to illustrate what I'm reading for comfort and relaxation lately, I discovered, to my delight, that I'm not the only huge fan of Sei Shonagon's Blog From Another World, otherwise known as the Pillow Book. (Evidently there's manga and YouTube versions of her!). It really is like reading a blog from another planet - 10th-century Japan is so alien, and Sei Shonagon's voice (at least in Ivan Morris's excellent translation) is so real and present. Accounts of court ceremonies and conversations (and exorcisms, which were apparently pretty commonplace) interspersed with her opinions: the proper circumstances under which to meet one's lover (summer, and PLEASE no whining about how awful your life is!); lists of subjects for poems (lawns; hail; bamboo grass). Lists of things that give one a nice clean feeling, or elegant things (shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl - presumably a 10th-century slushie), or unsui

  Happy Birthday Bilbo Baggins! Thank you, and Frodo, and Professor T. for being there way back in the day when I really, really needed you. In other news, just finished reading the final page-proofs of The Iron Princess, and just got the copy-edit of One Extra Corpse. VERY busy times.

Just got the news. Here she is, as a volunteer auto mechanic and driver towards the end of WWII. What an amazing life, and time - the Second Elizabethan Age indeed.  

  Saw this pretty lady - or one very like her (I snitched this picture off the Internet, since I'm beyond lousy with a cell-phone camera) - as I took my walk before sunup this morning. She's the second mantis I've seen in the past month - I saw one of exactly her dust-brown color sitting on a wall in Chico on my road-trip. They were all over the place when I was a little kid, in several colors - usually leaf-green, but often golden, or a darker brown than this. We had them as pets. My sister had a white one. Later this morning when I went to the campus I saw a full-grown and DAMN BIG hawk flap down onto the seat of a chained-up bicycle, and case the surrounding area like he'd paid for smorgasbord there. It's still hot - the temperature plunged clear down to 106 for today, though I'll bet it tops at 108 like it did yesterday (Sunday was 112). I'm still resting between projects (though I admit I'm working on another Further Adventure). The final page-proof

  My dad used to use the expression, "We're off like a herd of turtles," which was a good description of my vacation last week.  It was my first road-trip in 4 years - postponed from last month. The dear friends I visited I hadn't seen in 4 years, though because I've kept in touch it didn't feel like 4 years - and I hope never to have that long a hiatus again. Both destinations were in the deep woods of northern California. I did a lot of walking, and a lot of endless driving on those miles and miles and MILES of northern California two-lane highways that are completely unmarked ("Am I still on 99? Am I headed in the correct direction?" I had GPS maps but couldn't get Siri to work on my phone, despite coaching from the lovely young lady at Enterprise Rent-a-Car). And once you get into the gold country, a lot of those little mountain trails have no signs on them. And I came home to find my computer wouldn't boot. I spent a couple of days dozin

Just a little shout-out, happy birthday Mom, on what would have been her 94th birthday. (This is her in the church hall before my wedding).  

Although forced to re-schedule my vacation trip, I DID get to keep my research appointment at the Margaret Herrick Library, i.e. the research library of the Academy of Motion Pictures. And thanks to the advice of a friend about the best way to get there that didn't involve freeways and rush hour (my appointment was from 10-3, i.e. going into downtown during the morning rush hour and leaving during the afternoon rush hour along with several million other drivers going in the same directions), getting there was fairly painless and un-stressy. The library itself is LOVELY. The staff is helpful, friendly, extremely knowledgeable and scrupulous about COVID protocols. And, I got to look at silent film scripts (which showed that my portrayal of them in Scandal in Babylon was accurate, insofar as at that point there were evidently SEVERAL different ways of numbering scenes), and sources that clarified various other small points. When you're writing a murder mystery, or in fact any fict

It's been four years since I've had a vacation. I almost got to take one this week - and I apologize (as usual) for being dilatory about posting, because I was prepping to take a road trip to visit friends. I arranged some rather complicated scheduling of who was going to be home when, turned in my manuscript, tidied my house so the cat-sitter wouldn't think I'm a slob, arranged car rental because I don't want to worry about engine-trouble halfway between East Jesus and Mordor, arranged massively long playlists, re-arranged my research appointment and had the requisite number of nightmares about getting lost on cliff-tops or the cats escaping. Late in the afternoon of the day before my departure (which was scheduled for 9 a.m.), about an hour after I had cleaned out the refrigerator, horrible noises from within the walls informed me that the air conditioner had died. (Or that something extraterrestrial was attempting to materialize in the laundry-room). For a number

  Way back in the day, I attended the University of Bordeaux (the campus outside the city, not the downtown campus). There were a whole gang of UC students living in the dorms on campus, and nearly every evening one or another of us would  "take a study break" and go roving up to the kitchenettes (on the 2nd and 4th floors of our building, Building B) to see what other UC students were also "taking a study break" - i.e. sitting around talking and drinking tea for an hour before going back to our rooms. The French students didn't do this. So, I'm taking a study break before going back to what I hope is the final polish of "One Extra Corpse," the second Hollywood murder mystery. (It's due in 2 weeks). Classes are done for the summer - I'm allegedly teaching a class in Fall, if it makes the minimum enrollment (community college enrollments are down substantially all over the country). After eighteen VERY crowded months, I'll be able to ret

  As I'm going to be writing about silent-era Hollywood, I figured it was about time I did the deed, sat down, and watched these.  Intolerance was made over 100 years ago. There were almost no special effects (except probably the guy getting his head chopped off in battle) - that was really a bazillion extras storming the walls of Babylon on Sunset Boulevard. I was interested to see how sophisticated the filming techniques were, including a lot of stuff that's still being used (that little shot of speeded-up double-exposed ghost-figures scurrying around the villainess's office to indicate passage of time - that's still a pretty common short-hand for, "some time went by...."). The "barbarian soldiers" were pretty hilarious. Griffith had a beautiful sense of images, and the version I'm watching (in several installments - I don't have more than an hour or so of down-time 4 nights a week) isn't horrendously long. It's not like trying to s

  A couple of nights ago, the amazing beauty of the lunar eclipse. And, co-incidentally, one of the fiddling little parts of writing a murder-mystery: time-lines. And the moon. Just finished the nit-picketty task of figuring out, How many days after the murder does the heroine realize she's been followed, and how much can she see once she leaves her car on the road and dashes off into the sagebrush of the Hollywood Hills? Where's the moon that night?   I often find myself clocking back the timeline on a story by figuring out, at what point do my heroes need enough moonlight to see what's going on when they're outside at night? In movies, being outside at night is often VERY well-lit. IRL, not so much. (Even more so when you're trying to read someone's expression by the light of a single candle, or see what someone's doing on the other side of the room.) I pin THAT event, then count forwards and backwards from there. (We won't even get into details like w

  Things are finally calming down a little here - in time for the end-of-semester flurry of research papers and putting the final exam together. Having just finished the rough draft of the second Hollywood murder mystery - One Extra Corpse - I find that it's VERY hard to work on anything else, including stuff I HAVE to do, like give lectures about World War One, or sweep the floor, or feed the cats. Director Erich von Stroheim is a walk-on cameo role in Corpse, so the research is pretty entertaining. A minor slew of downpriced works through Open Road Media upcoming: tomorrow (Friday the 13th), Stranger at the Wedding (which Amazon counts as part of the Windrose series, even though Antryg doesn't appear in it: it's the same universe), and The Magicians of Night, the second half of my Magic Nazis du-ology (the first half being The Rainbow Abyss, which I think was on sale a short time ago). US and Canada, $1.99, digital. Saturday, the 14th, the Darwath Trilogy is on sale, $2.9

Farmer's Market this morning - through the past two years the market had shrunk down as the craftspeople stayed away, and it's nice to see them return. One of the musicians there was in the process of learning what he described as "a new song": a folk version of the old Carpenters' hit "We've Only Just Begun". I'm embarrassed to say I knew every word. Wrapping up the final proof-reading of "The Iron Princess," and hoping to have the whole day to work on the next Hollywood book, in quiet and in peace.  

  A shout-out to my friend Laura Frankos for her time-travel novel, Broadway Revival - now in paperback through Amazon, as well as on Kindle. Well-researched (old Broadway is her specialty), well-written, and entertaining!

  My apologies for not getting to this sooner. TOMORROW, April 19, (Tuesday), another whole slew of titles downpriced through Open Road. Tomorrow only, US and Canada, digital - Ladies of Mandrigyn, Dragonsbane, Traveling With the Dead, and Magicians of Night (i.e. vol. 2 of the Magic Nazis du-ology), $1.99. The Darwath Trilogy (Time of the Dark, Walls of Air, Armies of Daylight) $2.99. A busy Easter/Passover weekend, and I simply wasn't able to get to post. Sometimes, I just need to sleep.

  It's being an exciting week! My publishers at Severn House just sent me this VERY nice review from Booklist for the new Ben January book, "Death and Hard Cider." It’s 1840, and William Henry Harrison is making his run for the American presidency. Professional pianist and amateur sleuth Benjamin January has been hired to play at festivities in New Orleans. When a woman is murdered, and Benjamin’s friend is accused of the crime, he discovers that the search for the truth will put him up against some of the most powerful people in the country. This is the nineteenth Benjamin January mystery, but it is in every way as fresh as the first in the series, 1997’s A Free Man of Color. January is a wonderful character: he was born to enslaved parents but was freed when he was a child, received his medical training in Paris (he’s a surgeon), and now makes his living as a musician. He’s not a professional sleuth, and in fact we get the impression he’d be perfectly content if he neve

A whole slew of my books on sale from Open Road - digital - on Friday, April 15, for $1.99 - US only, it looks like. Stranger At The Wedding - This was my stand-alone fantasy which came out of a challenge at a workshop: somebody wanted me to demonstrate how I put a story together. I said I started with characters, often using people I'd seen in movies. They said, "How would you put together a story whose hero & heroine were Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn?" I thought about it for a moment and came out with the complete plot to this book - no demonstration. Just, "Here's the story..." Didn't help them much, but it's a pretty entertaining book. Magicians of Night - This was Book 2 of the du-ology "Sun-Cross," about a wizard who comes to OUR universe only to find himself in Nazi Germany working for the Occult Bureau. Open Road may have had the first volume, "Rainbow Abyss," on sale a couple of weeks ago. I'm just starting

  This morning a gentleman on my FB feed told me that Paramount has evidently walked back on the whole "Spock's Real Name" issue, and they said that the poster released online was "in error." Whether this means they AREN'T using the name from Ishmael, or that it's just not official yet, I have no idea - and it makes no difference to me, since I did that book as Work For Hire, they have all rights to everything and can use it however they choose. So my 15 minutes of fame lasted about 18 hours. I'm still pleased that SOMEBODY remembers Spock's name from that story.

  Whoo-hoo! A friend just notified me of this. Way back in 1985, I wrote a Star Trek novel Ishmael - it wasn't called Original Trek then because in 1985, it's the only Trek there was. In it, Spock mentions that his name is S'Chn T'Gai Spock (unpronounceable, as specified in the series). And THAT's the name the Paramount has officially declared (in the new series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) is Spock's name. "... this is not an unfamiliar name to fans of classic Star Trek novels. Barbara Hambly’s Pocket Book novel Ishmael, first released in 1985, gave S’Chn T’Gai as Spock’s name. It was established that, in a similar manner to how the Bajorans naming conventions work—where, for example, Deep Space Nine’s Major Kira Nerys’ given name is Nerys, not Kira—Vulcan names are inverted, and S’Chn T’Gai is actually Spock’s family name. Spock had previously alluded to having a first name in the Star Trek season 1 episode “This Side of Paradise,” where he described i

  When I take a walk in the mornings, there's a patch of California poppies near the house, blooming at this time of year, very pretty and cheerful. If the walk is very early, I get to see the morning star as well.  The giant mountain of Stuff - including the inevitable aftermath of a death in the family - has been mostly gotten through, and I'm feeling a bit more normal. (Being told that yes, I would be teaching a class two weeks after Mom's passing - and being told this on the Friday before class began - didn't help...) I lost about 2 months of work, so I'll be a bit preoccupied, but at least the research into 1920s Hollywood is fun (when it isn't jaw-droppingly appalling): writing a novel demands a level of detail not found in a lot of popular non-fiction. It's one thing to say, "In the early 20s Rudolf Valentino bought a house in the Hollywood Hills," but if my story is taking place in May of 1924, could our heroines have visited him there or n

  Well, fooey. I see that in some places I'm still listed as a signer at the Vintage Paperback Book Show being held tomorrow (March 20) at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. I'm so sorry - I'm not going to be able to make it this year. It's a great show and I look forward to being able to be there in the future. (I always find the damndest stuff there...) I apologize for not posting this earlier.

  Here's the first review of Death and Hard Cider, the next Benjamin January mystery, from Kirkus Reviews! Hambly continues her series of mysteries about Benjamin January, a free man of color in 1840s New Orleans. Educated as a physician, Benjamin makes a living as a piano player and teacher, and he’s in constant danger of being taken by slave traders. The miasmic city is abuzz with the arrival of former Secretary of State Henry Clay, who’s campaigning for Whig candidate William Henry Harrison against the Democrat Martin Van Buren. January and a few fellow musicians are playing at big campaign events for both parties. Trouble arrives in the form of Marie-Joyeuse Maginot, a beautiful, heartless flirt who has already occasioned several duels. Unfortunately, Clay’s son James is in love with her. So is her cousin Damien Aubin, who already has a wife and mistress. Neither Henry Clay nor Damien’s older brother Melchior approves of a romantic connection. When Melchior is called out by the

  Just trying out, to see if the new computer will let me post... and it will! One less thing to stress about!

  Thank you all for your patience and understanding. The funeral and memorial service are over, and of the four other MAJOR issues that had to be dealt with at the same time, one is done, one is on the downhill slope, one is on track, and the fourth has been postponed yet again. (This doesn't include the final editorial corrections on Iron Princess, which should be coming in this week). My sister and my niece stayed with me during the week of the funeral, and my niece took this photo of the Buddha in my back yard. I am currently working on getting enough sleep. I should be back to regular posting in a week or so.

  Thank you all for your patience. Some of the dust is settling after my mother's passing, but there's about another week of tidying up details. In these times, family and friends are indeed the greatest blessing one can ask for.

  More on sale from Open Road: Bride of the Rat-God - one of my all-time favorites of my own stories - tomorrow, January 26, digital, $1.99, US and Canada.  AND, Thursday, January 27: Another of my all-time favorites of my own work, Dog Wizard, the third of the Antryg Windrose novels: also digital, $1.99, US and Canada. And for those of you who collect the work of my late husband George Alec Effinger: Those Gentle Voices, also on sale Thursday Jan. 27, also $1.99. And, my apologies for not posting for awhile. My mother passed away on the 12th, and I've been caught up in making funeral arrangements and sorting things out over the phone with other family members. I'm happy to say that she went at home, in her sleep, at the age of 93, as quietly as a yellow leaf drifting down from a tree; she'd been fading for some months, but there was no illness, no hospitals, no nursing-home, no machines. My brother and his daughter took loving care of her. All was as it should be. But in t

  On sale Tuesday, Jan 11 - The Ladies of Mandrigyn (digital), through Open Road Media, US and Canada, $1.99. It is more or less a tribute to what it felt like, to be training with a troop of other women in martial arts, back in the '70s. (But of course, as with all books, the seed from where it started got added to with LOTS of other things that had nothing to do with that time or place). But we all get our ideas from somewhere, and Sun Wolf and Starhawk remain two of my favorite characters. (And I still train). Here's the original cover. Most of my work has gone through a number of editions, so there's a whole assortment of covers to choose from for this blog. And of course, none of them look like what I see in my head when I think of those characters. At least on the original cover, though it was back in the early '80s, Starhawk isn't prepping to go into battle in nothing but a brass bra and high boots. (I love Frazetta-style art, but there are limits...)