Cats Love Fault Lines

Cats love Fault Lines.

H/T to Heebie-Jeebie

Also to File 770, where Cats Sleep on SFF is a Thing.

This, on the other hand...

I don't even know what to say about this



UNACCOMPANIED:  Alone in America from Linda Freedman on Vimeo.

Something to Cheer Us Up

This is pretty wonderful:

(H/t https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/ )

This Happens Literally All The Time

And it happened again today.

It usually happens on social media, but sometimes IRL as well.

We'll be talking, some man and I. It is (almost*) always a man, and always a white man, and always a straight white man. Not always a conservative man, either. Often enough, this is a progressive man, or at least he calls himself progressive.

We'll disagree about something.

Now according to the rules, you see, the rules of how woman and men discuss things, I am allowed to disagree with him. But I should tinkle with deferential laughter and cringe and duck my head and hedge everything I say with sweet little girl phrases like "don't you think" and "well, maybe" and "I don't know, I just wonder if" and "I'm just a ignorant little nuffin, but don't you think" and essentially make him feel like a big strong man who is graciously allowing me to be in this big boy intellectual conversation at all.

I stopped doing that particular dance when I was about 25, when I became a feminist. Now I just say what I mean, backing up what I mean with facts and evidence, as if I were a human being in the same way he is a human being.

Not all men by any means, but some men* interpret this as an attack.

These men interpret it as an attack on their manhood. "You're not doing your cause any favors by being such a bitch," one of them said.

Or, "It's women like you who cause men to hate feminists," another said.

I've always blogged under delagar, as all y'all know, and for years many people thought "delagar" was a man. Some people still do. Interestingly, I never got (and never get) reactions like this on those occasions.

I didn't used to believe in fragile masculinity. But these guys have been making such a case for it, it's hard to not to these days.

*Some women interpret it as an attack as well. These are women who think any sort of discussion is "arguing." They also think everything is an "opinion." So when someone points out that what they're saying is factually incorrect, well, that's me imposing my "opinion" over their "opinion" which is just rude.  How dare I claim that Trump has put children in cages? Their opinion is that he has not! My "opinion" that he has is no more valid than theirs! It's rude to say they're wrong!

Hot and Horrible

It's been miserably hot here over the past week -- close to 100 degrees every day, with a heat index of 107 or 108 each day -- and also I picked up some virus at school. Vomiting and aching while being hot and cranky is not a good mix.

The virus is gone, at least, though the heat is not. Weather guy says temperatures will stay near 100 for the foreseeable future. Bah.

Plus the political news continues awful. It's almost funny, in the bleakest, most horrific way, how one horrific thing after the next happens.

It's like slapstick disaster theater, if you see what I mean.

Or, you know, it would be funny, if it weren't happening to the country I live in and want to be proud of.

As it is, sweet Jesus. No wonder I projectile vomited for 12 hours straight. The wonder is we aren't all doing so.

What I'm Reading

I've been teaching two summer classes, as I noted in the previous post, plus actually writing again (two short stories and I've started another Velocity novel) so my time for reading is limited; but nevertheless I persist!

Here's what I've read over the past month and half or so:

Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's. 

I read a review of the first book in this series, Just One Damn Thing After Another, by James Nicholls over on his review site, which I recommend highly if you like SFF, by the way. It sounded like exactly my jam, a time travel series in an academic setting, with a woman main character. I bought the first one, and I was hooked.

These are indeed time travel novels, but also historical romances, but also comic novels, and also delightful. Hard to describe without spoilers, but if you want fiction that's not too stressful and also extremely addictive, this is for you. Also there are lots of them -- nine, with another due out soon, plus a book of short stories. Oh, boy!

Barry Unsworth, Mortality Play, The Quality of Mercy

These I read on the recommendation of Athena Andreadis, who mentioned them on Twitter on day -- or mentioned one of them. They're historical fiction, and very well done. The first is about a group of players who stumble into a murder mystery in a small town during the years after the Black Death; the second is about the men and women working to preserve and to fight against slavery in England.

Mortality Play also won the Booker Prize.

Books about complex moral questions are also totally my jam, and these are very well written. Highly recommended. My library only has these two, but I'm thinking of buying the others.


Charles Stross, Saturn's Children

For some reason, I never got around to reading Charles Stross. As I recall, I picked up one of his books (I forget which one) which was in the middle of a series, and couldn't really understand what was going on, put it down, and never picked up any of his books again.

This one, Saturn's Children, seems to be a stand alone, and is pretty good. It's far-future, in a universe in which all humanity has died out. Only the robots survive. They miss humans, who they were built to serve, but are carrying on.

The worldbuilding is great, and the robot characters are wonderful. This one is a lot of fun and also filled with ideas -- what science fiction was built to be. Highly recommended.

I might even give Stross's other work another chance. :D

Teaching Post

I've been teaching a "transitional" class this summer. Transitional is what we used to call remedial English back when I started this gig.

I've been teaching Comp pretty much non-stop for well over 25 years (I just did the math, and yes, well over), but I haven't taught remedial English since I was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Idaho. The university I taught at in North Carolina just didn't offer it -- though it needed it badly -- and when I started here in the Fort, all the remedial classes, which were called something else then (I can't remember what), were in separate department.

But a couple semesters go, that department was dissolved, and the Transitional classes became part of their departments -- transitional math with the math department, in other words, and Transitional College Writing with the English department.

All of which is a long way of saying that I am teaching remedial English for the first time in nearly 20 years, and liking it a great deal.

It may be because this is a summer class. All my students are either older students or immigrants. None of them are here because their parents signed them up for the class, in other words. They show up with the assignments done, ready to work. That's just so pleasant.

Also, despite the class, they are both engaged and fairly literate, if not uniformly well-read.

Mind you, some of them are also well-read. One of them quoted Plato at me today! It was great. We had a sidebar about The Republic together before returning to the less-engaging question of how to build an essay map.

Beyond all this, however, almost all of them are here to learn. When I told them that the arguments in their essays had to be supported with sources, and that those sources had to be valid sources, they took notes on what a valid source was. Not one of them turned in an essay with anything other than valid sources supporting their claims.

One of them explained to me that they'd had to change their topic. "I thought this," they said, "but when I tried to find valid sources to support it, I couldn't. So I knew it couldn't be supported. So I changed my thesis to this."

I just nodded seriously and told them they'd done a good job. But in my head?

Pride Parade in NWA

We spent yesterday up in Fayetteville, at the Pride Parade (if you're LGBTQ in Arkansas, Fayetteville is your oasis).

It was the Kid's first Pride parade -- mine too. "Whaat?" the Kid said.

"Well, they're always in June," I said. "Obviously. And you know how I feel about summer."

"Oh, right." The Kid thought this over. "You must really love me."

But it was a wonderful parade. The Kid said they might happy-cry. I don't know if they did, but I'll admit I did, once or twice.

Before the parade, we walked up and down Dickson Street, admiring the crowd: sassy girls wearing rainbow flags like capes, lovely shirtless boys holding hands, tiny toddlers in rainbow tutus running through the crowd, stately grandmothers with canes and rainbow flowers in their hair, and so many dogs. The sole sour note was an Evangelical standing on wall with a bullhorn telling all these wonderful, happy, celebrating people they would burn in the fires of hell. The Kid flipped him off as we went past.

We stopped at the little grocery store where the Kid shops when school is in session, to buy bottles of water, and stayed inside there in the AC to drink them.

Then we went out again, and down the street to sit on the curb in the shade of a big tree and wait for the parade. Some of our friends and their kids found us there -- I'd been looking for them, sort of hopelessly, because the crowd was huge -- and we spent the ten or fifteen minutes before the parade started catching up.

Also still enjoying the crowd.  More dogs! More trans and gay and genderqueer and Lesbian people! A set of tiny redheaded twins in fairy-princess costumes! A tiny poodle in a rainbow tutu! A large man with an impressive beard wearing a shirt that said: TRUMP IS THE ONLY DICK I CANNOT HANDLE.

The parade itself began right on time. It was pretty wonderful.

The best parts, I think, were the UA-Pride organization, which the Kid has not yet been able to join, because their studio art class conflicted with it all last year; and the Socialists For LGBT Rights (there was a guy from the IWW there -- Dr. Skull shouted out to him something about Joe Hill, and made his day); and the local Jewish temple, Temple Shalom, marching in the parade.



Lots of religious groups marched, by the way -- not just the Jews! But obviously we were very pleased to see the temple there.

Also the atheists marched. That was nice too!

Also, two of my ex-students were in the parade. (That's not them above!)

All in all, a wonderful experience.

Review of The Enclave

My latest review is live at Strange Horizons.

This one is of Anne Charnock's award-winning novella, The Enclave, which is set in the same world as her novel, A Calculated Life, which I highly recommend.

Lift-Off!

More on Fault Lines from my publisher!

Fault Lines received terrific reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and from SF legend Gwyneth Jones and Ditmar award winner Tansy Rayner Roberts (and nabbed today’s spot at Scalzi’s Big Idea). Review excerpts:

In this fun, intrigue-laden space opera, // Jennings gives an intriguing glimpse of a much larger setting. // Fans of found family will love the portrayal of Velocity and her crew of scrappy underdogs. — Publishers Weekly

Kelly [Jennings] has been compared with C. J. Cherryh, and I think deservedly. Fault Lines isn’t burdened with the awful angst of Cherryh’s [] Cyteen, but it has the same intensity and conviction. — Gwyneth Jones, author of the Aleutian trilogy, winner of the World Fantasy, Clarke, Dick, and Tiptree awards

More political intrigue and gamesmanship than a standard space-battle story… // Solid world building, likable characters…nifty plot twists… — Craig Clark, Booklist 

A sharp, character-rich space opera packed with angry, capable women and attractive, vulnerable men. Jennings builds a large, politically complex world // but expresses this through an intimate slice… — Tansy Rayner Roberts, author of the Creature Court trilogy, winner of multiple Ditmar and WSFA Small Press awards

Fault Lines is available on Amazon, B&N, Kobo – and of course on our website, where buying the lovingly prepared trade paperback also brings along the full digital bundle (PDF, Epub and Mobi) . All C&G ebooks are DRM-free. As a reminder, it may take a couple of days post-launch for full linkage between print and digital versions on Amazon and B&N.

Come explore Fault Lines with us; sail the perilous skies of the Pirian/Combine ‘verse with genetic outlaws and hierarchy subverters!

Fault Lines? Big Idea?

Yes, you read that right -- my novel, Fault Lines, is today's Big Idea over on John Scalzi's blog, Whatever.

Go here to read all about it!

Also, you can buy my book!  AT LAST!

Pre-Order Fault Lines!

You can pre-order my new novel, Fault Lines, on Kindle, or in a print version.

You can also get it from B&N, or from Kobo!

Big announcement coming on Monday, by the way!

New Recipe up at Cooking With Delagar

I used to make this entirely non-authentic stir-fry all the time when I was a grad student. Lately I've been making it with the Kid, because it's quick and cheap and tasty.

Have the recipe!

What's This?

You can pre-order someone's book!

Your Last Week to Win!

Sign up to win my book! The Give-Away is in its last week!

Go here for more details!

(The book will debut on June 11 -- you can order it then! And don't worry! I'll be posting ALL THE LINKS!)

Summer I

Summer teaching starts tomorrow. My Comp I class made -- hurrah! -- but my fiction writing class did not. However, I picked up a transition writing class, which doesn't have quite full enrollment (and so I won't quite be getting full pay for it), which means we'll have almost enough money to make it through the summer.

Also, I won't have to teach Summer II. That's five weeks off to write.

Boo-yah!

Take My Poll!

So I'm doing research -- I'm sorry, make that "research" on the interwebs, trying to find out what most people would wish for if they could have one wish granted...

Holy smokes*, y'all, you would not believe the number of people who would wish for unlimited weed.

Meanwhile, go take my highly scientific poll over on the Twitter.




*Pun definitely intended