Barbara's Blog

  Back from WorldCon - LAcon V - to find in my e-mail the editorial notes on the next Benjamin January mystery, now titled The Devil's Dinner... due in less than two weeks. So this'll be brief. Briefly, it was a wonderful con. There was a shortage of volunteers - travel being far more expensive this year, among other things - so I had the impression that the committee was run ragged making sure everything was covered. Nevertheless, they put on a marvelous range of program items (over 1600 of them!), and kept things running smoothly - though Ursula Vernon (Toastmaster) had to vamp her way through IT delays during the Masquerade and the Hugos with Fun Facts About Weird Animals (including more than you ever wanted to know about starfish anatomy and the mating habits of porcupines). (She is VERY funny). I was on a lot of panels, so there was a lot of the convention that I simply didn't have time to see. I made the time to visit the Art Show... Beautiful stuff. (And because I wa...

  After three attempts to use the stylish template of my LA-Con schedule, I'm just going to write it out here. My apologies - I've been trying to get the rough draft for the next Hollywood mystery in shape (the outline is even more disorganized than usual, owing to circumstances beyond my control), and I'm doing about 45 minutes per day of physical therapy exercises, which cut into time. Here's where I'll be at LACon-V, the 2026 Worldcon at the Anaheim Convention Center, August 27-31: Thursday, August 27 : Sleuthing Through History - Noon Barbara Hambly Birthday Tea Party - 3 pm (yes, because I'm one of the Guests of Honor, and that weekend is my 75th birthday, they're giving a tea party which will be open to all, they tell me. So I'll see you there!) Friday, August 28 : GoH Interview - Noon - They asked me, did I want to give a speech, or be interviewed? I said I'd rather be interviewed, so I will be interviewed by my longtime friend Christine Val...

  2026 Worldcon is Coming Up! The 2026 Worldcon is coming up in just over 3 weeks! I will be one of seven Guests of Honor (with Ronald Moore, Colleen Doran, Dr. Anita Sengupta, Tim Kirk (whose work I have loved since I was in High School!), Stan Sakai (Yay Usagi the Samurai Rabbit!), and Geri Sullivan, with Ursula Vernon as Toastmaster. LOTS of other excellent guests on over 1600 events: panels, meet-ups, kids' p rogramming, readings, autographings, table-talks, gaming, (and a tea party to celebrate my 75th birthday, put on by the con committee). Plus, of course, the masquerade, art show, and the Hugo Awards. Anaheim Convention Center (and the Hilton Hotel near-by), August 27-31. In other news, I'm still trying to regain my status as a "guest administrator" on the Barbara Hambly, Writer Facebook page, but I will start posting also on bluesky (barbara-hambly-44.bsky.social), though I understand they have a word-limit per post. Thank you for your patience!

  Today it has been ten years since my Dad's passing. I can't really talk about it, or write about it - he was a very special man and one of the greatest blessings of my life was to have him as the head of our family. A fan of history, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Zane Gray. Ninety-one was far too young, but he got to leave from his own home, without doctors or machines, with his beloved wife at his side. Lots of memories.

  The nice folks organizing WorldCon asked me for a picture of my study, so here it is. (I tried to get the one of me while I was President of SFWA, in a scarlet dress conducting the SFWA meeting with a whip, but couldn't manage to scan it correctly. This'll have to do.) I'm STILL trying to regain access to my Facebook page, "Barbara Hambly, Writer," but have not had any luck getting in touch with the people who actually run the page. The personal page that I used as a sort of gateway to get into the Writer page won't let me on until I "Press This Button to Get Started!" and I can't find out whether this is an actual thing, or a scam of some kind (I got into a LOT of grief the last time I pressed a button without checking). (It's not doing that on my other, Secret Facebook Page.) The good news is that I finished Ben January #22 (Act of Insurrection) AND a short story for an upcoming anthology of stories set in Larry Niven's Known Space un...

  Happy Mother's Day, all! Here's my Mom, playing the piano before my wedding. I miss her - and Dad - every day. Continuing apologies for not having the time to figure out the Facebook issue - the next Ben January book is due to be turned in in three weeks, and I've been dealing with mild health issues and other interferences with work. All is coming along well. One of the interferences could be counted as Research - I went to the Ventura Melee Megabowl last weekend, and, in addition to watching guys fighting in armor (full contact, full armor), I was delighted to see that four women's teams competed as well. As a conscientious writer of sword-and-sorcery fiction, I went down and talked to ladies who actually DO fight in armor - useful knowledge. (Other than a couple of brief lessons in broadsword, the sword training I've done has been Japanese style, single-blade katana, no armor). [Dang it, I need to do some fiddling with the pictures before I can post them...!] I...

  First, to my great annoyance (I have five weeks before I need to turn in the next Benjamin January book) I have not yet got the situation with Facebook sorted out. I am still not able to sign in and post on my Facebook site, Barbara Hambly, Writer - I'm trying to get that sorted out. BUT, I'm happy to say that as part of my new contract with Open Road Media, there will be a new (or 70% new) entry in the Asher/Ysidro vampire series after all. A couple of years ago I wrote "Gravemould and Ectoplasm," covering Lydia's adventures with Don Simon Ysidro in New York after Don Simon ceased being an active vampire and became... whatever he became, a ghost among the Undead. At the end of the final novel of the series, Prisoner of Midnight, he and Lydia are in New York (with 5-year-old Miranda, Lydia's daughter) while James Asher has to go back to his undercover assignment on the Eastern Front.  Last year I picked up that story in a novella called "Nightfall's...

  Still more apologies - a LOT of stuff going on, and a very close deadline. And to make matters more complicated, Facebook has decided not to let me into the FB page from which I access the "Barbara Hambly Writer" page (which is operated by one of my publishers). I get a blocking message saying I need a (not sure whether it's "passkey" or "passcode" and I'm too tired to look it up at the moment). I have no idea whether this - and the "click this button to solve the problem!" button - is a scam which will end with my bank account being robbed (again), and since FB has no way of contacting them directly to find out, I'm putting off doing anything about the problem until the next Ben January book (# 22 in the series!) is a little more under control. So, I'll try to come onto this page more frequently - for now, this is the way to get in touch with me. All else is going well, except that I'm very tired and working into the nights...

  Stuff going on. Next weekend - Feb. 6-7-8 - I will be at the Gallifrey One Dr. Who Convention, at the LAX Marriott Hotel. I'll be on a couple of panels, and doing a signing - and my lovely niece (or niece-in-law) Sara will ALSO be on a couple of fan panels. Usually Gallifrey co-incides with Strategicon, which is held at the hotel next door (the LAX Hilton) but this year, because of the NBA All-Star game, Gallifrey was moved up a weekend from its usual time-slot - so I'll miss doing the heavy cruise of the Strategicon dealer's room that I usually do. However, I'm hoping that my first official incursion into the Dr. Who universe will be released by then (it's scheduled for "February"): the audio adventure from Big Finish, "The Kraken of Hagwell." As far as I can tell, it seems like it will only be released digitally, but I'll check in the dealer's room (I don't listen to audio-books on my computer, for a variety of reasons) - also, it...

  It's time for the Christmas watchlist - a bit abbreviated this year because it's a busy and tiring Christmas. But definitely the four favorites: a) We're No Angels (few people realize what a great comic actor Humphrey Bogart was), b) Scrooged (in my opinion one of Bill Murray's greatest roles - and one of the best re-tellings of Christmas Carol on film, closely rivalled by...) c) the George C. Scott Christmas Carol. I've heard people describe d) Love Actually as "cringey" and inappropriate, and yes, some of its jokes are definitely sexist and fat-shaming... But it still makes me weep. I apologize for that. And in between all that, I continue my research into one of the weirdest alien civilizations ever to have existed on this planet: Heian-era Japan. A very, very strange world indeed.

Happy Birthday, John!  

               In the middle of an exhausting and vexing week (I got my computer hacked – not a whole lot of damage done, but the clean-up is miserable), good news.               For years I’ve been a fan of Big Finish Audio Adventures of Dr. Who – licensed from the BBC to do audio adventures, with previous Doctors. (Now in his 90s, on audio Tom Baker still looks like he did in 1976). In some cases, wonderful voice-actors have stepped in, who can do perfect imitations of previous Doctors (and previous companions) now deceased. About 5 years ago, I wrote an audio script for the so-called “Companion Chronicles” niche of Big Finish, stories centering on – and narrated by – one or another of the Doctor’s companions. These aren’t full-cast audios, but with a limited cast; in this case, both the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and the Brigadier (one of the Doctor...

  It's been a busy summer - the usual apologies for not posting. The picture is an old one, taken by R. Mann at a convention in 2016, but I wore the costume just a couple of weekends ago, at the Legacy Expo in Burbank. Legacy Expo is a WONDERFUL Star Wars convention. It concentrates on the "Expanded Universe" (i.e. both the current backstory of the Star Wars universe, and the backstory as envisioned in the original bunch of novels back in the '90s). It's an entirely fan-run convention, though their relations with Disney and Lucasfilm are very cordial. Thus, it's small, and feels very friendly - and, my thanks, here, to the wonderful con committee. I gather it's only put on every couple of years. I think the next one will be in 2028, but Legacy Expo is working on planning smaller events in the interim. The convention fell in the middle of a tight deadline to read and correct the final copyedit of the next Hollywood murder-mystery - Death in the Palace - whi...

  Just a quick check-in. Just got back from the Celsius 232 Festival of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror in Aviles, Spain - a WONDERFUL festival, and unlike any other convention I've been to. It's not in a hotel, but bookshop kiosks are scattered all through the 17th-century Old Town. This was the hotel they put me up in - a 17th-century nobleman's palace (that served REALLY fine breakfasts!) (The other picture is of me in front of an old fountain). Soft gray weather. One day it did drizzle. Two days there was a religious festival - the Virgin of Carmen, who guards all vehicles, fishing-boats in this case - with parades of drummers and a life-size Madonna carried through the streets. In the evening everyone in town walks their dogs. The final notes from my editor on 'Death in the Palace' are due in a week, and I will post at greater length then. (I am also having the house re-piped, so there are plumbers in and out and for a week there was a back-hoe in my fron...

  Father's Day memories of a Classic '50s Dad: kind, responsible, worked hard for his family and his Church, loved nature and took us hiking and camping and to museums (and to Disneyland - back when it was affordable! - even though he hated crowds!). Loved us. Loved my Mom. Like the animals in the wild that he loved, he believed in teaching his young to survive on their own (bank accounts when we were in our early teens, "always have an emergency fund.") Fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Roman history, Zane Gray; told us about the Iliad and the Odyssey (and got us the Classic Comics versions when they came out). Like Hector in the Iliad, who says of his baby son, "I would like one day to hear men say of him, 'He's a better man than his father.'" Knowing him - having him as a mentor - was one of the greatest gifts of my life. Love you, Dad! In other news: The next Benjamin January novel, "Murder in the Trembling Lands", will be out next month...

  HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Here is a deeply unflattering picture of me on the beach this morning, wearing 4 layers under my gi and looking like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, after doing 1100 sword-cuts with my iaido group at sunrise, a dojo tradition of "spirit training." After the Misogi - as it's called - we walked down to the ocean, to watch the waves materialize out of a horizonless gray eternity of fog.

    Finally, I've had the time (and the mental energy) to thrash through the tiring and complicated process of uploading two new further adventures onto Amazon Kindle! I will upload them onto Smashwords (or its new twin, Draft-2-Digital) in a few days. It's been a very stressful couple of years, between tight deadlines, a summer of travel, assorted pressures from the Outside World, and some necessary house and car repairs. (I feel like I'm just starting to come out of the first phase of grief over my mother's passing, almost three years ago, and that slows everything down.) But, the stories are up on Kindle and people tell me they've downloaded them successfully, so I didn't screw that up. There have been a couple of changes to the Amazon-Kindle system in the past couple of years and I wasn't sure I was doing the upload properly, but evidently even the Table of Contents in Cat's Paw works. (I had my doubts). Cat's Paw is John Aversin and Jenny Wayn...

Dad in his Marine days. Prior to that he was in the Army at the end of WW-2. He served in China, but would never talk about it. A salute to America's Veterans.  

  In honor of Halloween - though this picture of me and my dear friend Allan Rothstein was taken a day or so after Thanksgiving, sometime in the '80s, at a LosCon in LA. We competed in the Masquerade as Hades and Persephone. In other news, I finished the 22nd Benjamin January mystery - working title "Chalmette" (since it deals with a long-cold case of a disappearance, and with Ben's service in the Battle of New Orleans). The editor says the title doesn't say "mystery" to her and it will probably be changed. I'll keep you posted. I was very pleased when my preliminary research for the mystery at the core of the plot turned out that the hypothetical situation I'd come up with actually existed: there really WAS a villainous mastermind behind nefarious deeds! I turned the manuscript in Monday and have been in severe post-partum depression ever since - which usually happens when I turn in a manuscript. Here's another picture of me at a Costume-Con...

  It's official! I will be one of the eight Guests of Honor at the 2026 World Science Fiction Convention, held in Anaheim, August 27-31 2026. (And I get to celebrate my 75th birthday at the con!) https://www.lacon.org/ Other Guests of Honor include artist Tim Kirk (whose work I've loved since the early '70s!), screenwriter and producer Ron Moore, cartoonist Colleen Doran, engineer Dr. Anita Sengupta, Stan Sakai (Go, Usagi!), fan GoH Geri Sullivan, and Toastmaster and illustrator Ursula Vernon - truly amazing company to be in. I am sort of speechless - and just very glad that people think my work is good. Thank you to the con committee!