Barbara's Blog

  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...)

  Evidently there's a year-end sale going on at Open Road books. Today, US and Canada, $1.99 apiece, digital: Those Who Hunt the Night, Dog Wizard, Walls of Air, Armies of Daylight - by George Effinger, Fire in the Sun and Exile Kiss. Mind you, none of the many covers that have appeared on Dog Wizard or Armies of Daylight look like what they look like in my head - not that any of that will make a difference, in a digital edition. The one on Exile Kiss is nice - the third book of George's Budayeen trilogy. I've never seen that one before. Happy New Year everyone.

  A very quiet Christmas here, due to a stomach bug (after spending a lovely Christmas Eve with friends) which caused me to cancel Christmas Day family plans. I just couldn't face the drive. So, a day of reading editorial notes on "Death and Hard Cider," Ben January #19 - and when necessary, eating what my husband used to call "non-threatening food." No Christmas candy here. Open Road promo Monday: the whole Darwath Trilogy will be down-priced to $2.99 (digital, US and Canada) - Monday December 27. As with Time of the Dark, though Walls of Air has had a number of very beautiful covers in various editions, I'm still partial to the original Del Rey paperback cover. Although no cover of any book of mine looks the way the scenes look in my head. Now that I've posted grades for the semester, and have 6 weeks of break, maybe I'll be able to get back to painting on Sunday afternoons. I've missed it. Everybody have a lovely and peaceful holiday!

  Open Road - Tuesday, December 21 - Time of the Dark downpriced (digital, US and Canada) to $1.99. (Yes, I know there are more recent covers, but this one has always been my favorite!) In addition, I want to put in a plug for Laura Frankos' Broadway Revival, on Kindle, an entertaining and well researched time-travel tale about (among other things) old Broadway musicals... Class is done for the semester. Can I please get some actual work done now?

A way long time ago, during the British Invasion of the mid-'60s, I had a medium-size crush on a British rock-n-roller named Ian Whitcomb. His big hit was "You Turn Me On" and I remember he was a pretty enthusiastic showman on programs like Shindig and Hullabaloo. But even on his first rock album, he had what was probably an old British music-hall song called "Poor But Honest", and he later had a hit with an old Al Jolson tune, "Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday on Saturday Night?" And of course, he went on from there to become a much-respected historian of old British music-hall tunes, with his own radio show: I saw him in concert at the Huntington Library several years ago, gray-haired, slender, and cute as ever. He passed away in April of 2020 - I have heard, from COVID, though on-line it's listed as complications from a stroke suffered 8 years previously. He had an office and did research at the Huntington Library, and this book - After ...

  Always my favorite. 

  More adventures in research. Harry Turtledove turned me on to this one a couple of years ago - I find it a soothing and informative before-bed read (when I should actually be researching either the Presidential election of 1840 - for Benjamin January - or what the Los Angeles barrios were like in 1924 - for the second Hollywood mystery). American Cornball is an exhaustive compilation taken from old joke-books, old "novelties" catalogs (the precursors to Archie McPhee), old magazine, newspaper, and animated cartoons, of stuff that used to be considered hilarious in American culture and now isn't. From the hate-filled pervasiveness of racist humor to the "hunh?" of humor about women's ankles and people getting their hats knocked off, the guy really did his research, and writes in a pleasant, readable, thoughtful style. Sometimes simply curious, sometimes really unsettling to see some of the things that people at one time thought it was okay to make jokes abo...