Yaddith Times

My Goodreads review: Kiss of the Butterfly

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:20:57 GMT

Kiss of the Butterfly by James Lyon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My rating on this one is actually the average of two ratings: one for writing style, one for concept / research / fresh ideas. Kiss of the Butterfly, so far as I know, is a first novel -- and from time to time, it read like one. In writing style, and even in some of the overall characterization & plotting, it seemed like an average thriller on the horrific side. Lyon definitely kept the pages turning - or, in my case, the screen-swipes & page-clicks going -- but the style was nothing out of the ordinary. Three stars.

Plus five stars for the most meticulously researched take on vampires I've read in a very long time. So meticulous, in fact, that it includes an entire Historical Note section at the end -- in which one can learn that almost every moldering tome, secret vampire-hunting society, & appalling slaughter mentioned in this book is actually real. Names, dates, & titles are provided for anyone interested in researching further.

Authentic Balkan vampire folklore, with a heavy side order of recent history & reasonably compelling characters, make this book a treat for vampire fans jaded by a few too many urban fantasies.

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Tales of Jack the Ripper: the TOC has escaped

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:14:23 GMT

Editor Ross Lockhart has just posted the TOC for Tales of Jack the Ripper (Word Horde, fall 2013):

Whitechapel Autumn, 1888 — Ann K. Schwader
A Host of Shadows — Alan M. Clark and Gary A. Braunbeck
Jack’s Little Friend — Ramsey Campbell
Abandon All Flesh — Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The God of the Razor — Joe R. Lansdale
The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker — Ennis Drake
Ripping — Walter Greatshell
Something About Dr. Tumblety — Patrick Tumblety
The Truffle Pig — T. E. Grau
Ripperology — Orrin Grey
Hell Broke Loose — Ed Kurtz
Where Have You Been All My Life? — Edward Morris
Juliette’s New Toy — Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Villains by Necessity — Pete Rawlik
When the Means Just Defy the End — Stanley C. Sargent
A Pretty for Polly — Mercedes Yardley
Termination Dust — Laird Barron
Once November — E. Catherine Tobler
Silver Kisses — Ann K. Schwader

My contributions to this exciting -- and no doubt blood-spattered -- project are both sonnets, previously published though not recently. I'm delighted that they were chosen to lead off & wind up this remarkable collection of talent.

It's been 125 years since the Whitechapel murders. My, how time flies . . .

Mars wants our haiku!

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:10:30 GMT

As part of its Going to Mars campaign to celebrate the forthcoming launch of the Maven spacecraft, NASA is running a haiku contest! (OK, they are actually asking for "haikus," but I'm not about to tell NASA what the plural of "haiku" is.)

If you've always wanted a chance to send your very own haiku to Mars -- three will be chosen by popular vote -- or at least send your name there on a specially engraved DVD, check out all the contest info here. It's free, & anyone on the planet may enter. Deadline for entries is July 1. Rules are here.

Need some inspiration? Get up to speed on the Maven mission here. I'm especially excited, since Maven is being assembled right here in Colorado, not too far from where I live.

And I'm working on my Red Planet haiku right now.

Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness reviewed on Amazing Stories

Sat, 04 May 2013 22:18:19 GMT

Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness (Popcorn Press 2012), edited by Lester Smith, gets an extensive and favorable review this week on the Amazing Stories website.

Diane Severson (divadiane1) includes her own history with this anthology -- she backed it as a Kickstarter project -- as well as notes on H.P. Lovecraft, scifaiku, & some online sources for Lovecraftian fiction and poetry.

In addition, Diane lends her professionally trained voice to an extensive selection of works from the anthology, available as a free download.

[Truth in LJing: I have two haiku in this anthology, and Diane reads one of them in her selection. She picked the more disturbing one, of course.]

My Goodreads review: Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper #5)

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:05:12 GMT

Captain's Share by Nathan Lowell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Unlike many of my fellow reviewers of this audiobook, I did not find Captain's Share as compelling as most of the previous adventures. I'm not sure why, either. The plot seemed to move more slowly, or at least with more interruptions, than in most of the other books, & I sometimes felt as though I was reading management tips for newly fledged commercial captains!

As ever, though, I did find myself caring deeply about the characters -- sad when Ishmael's marriage finally falls apart, nervous while the Agamemnon takes a terrible risk getting its first cargo delivered on time, triumphant when the crew finally comes together as a family -- and concerned about the small details of their lives. It was also good to see Ishmael making some mistakes while assuming his first command, though I wouldn't have expected anything less of the author.

The immersive nature of this series is still working for me, and I've already downloaded the first few chapters of the final volume to my iPod. So long as treadmills and household chores exist, there will be a place in my audio-reading life for books this consistently involving.

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Of Rippers & Searchers

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:31:59 GMT

What do London's most famous (& still uncaught) serial killer and weird horror have in common?

Me, apparently. In the past couple of weeks, I've received acceptances from the editors of two marvelous projects in the horror field:

Ross Lockhart of Word Horde has taken two sonnets of mine -- both reprints, but one hasn't seen the dark of night in years -- for Tales of Jack the Ripper, coming this fall to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Whitechapel murders.

Lovecraftian scholar & editor S.T. Joshi just let me know last week that my tale of photomontage & cosmic fear, "Dark Equinox," will be joining the TOC of Searchers After Horror, to be published in early to mid 2014 by Fedogan & Bremer.

I'll post more information on both projects when possible. For now, I'm still searching my office carpet for a few stray teeth . . .

we'll always have Earth Day

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:01:47 GMT

Earth Day

each colony dome

plants a tree

Ann K. Schwader

my Goodreads review: In the Garden of Beasts

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:33:04 GMT

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you're not a regular reader of long-form nonfiction (like me!), you're probably looking for a fine sense of narrative & character when you do pick up a book like this. Just as he did with Devil in the White City, Erik Larson delivers both.

I decided to read this after the last season of Upstairs, Downstairs, to get another view of diplomatic life in Berlin immediately before WWII. I wasn't disappointed. Without bogging down too often in the complex political details of an isolationist America, Larson manages to keep the life stories of unlikely diplomat William E. Dodd & his socially adventurous (to put it mildly) daughter Martha humming along. We also get glimpses of Dodd's wife and son, though perhaps not often enough. The focus on these two characters does make for a more coherent narrative, though, & Martha in particular keeps the pages turning.

When things start falling apart -- appallingly -- in the summer of 1934, there's a real sense of shock as tedious dinner parties, diplomatic infighting, & Martha's romantic adventures give way to executions and terror. Larson picks up the pace even more at this point, though Dodd's moral principles and unwillingness to deal with the new reality of Hitler's Reich don't allow for much suspense.

For those curious about such things, Larson includes a full set of notes on sources -- reassuring even for those of us swept along by the story.

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curiouser & curiouser -- top five discoveries for Mars rover Curiosity

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:18:04 GMT

Feeling a little behind on your Mars news? (You're not alone.)

Fortunately, this recent item from SPACE.com can get us all up to speed on the top five discoveries -- so far! -- made by NASA's latest red planet rover, Curiosity.
The article includes videos, links, & even a quiz. Catnip for Mars junkies, right here.

new Eye to the Telescope is up -- Immigrations issue

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:11:45 GMT

Just in time for National Poetry Month, the Science Fiction Poetry Association's online journal of spec poetry has put up a new issue -- and it's a tasty one.

The theme this time is Immigrations, & the editor for this issue of Eye to the Telescope is Joanne Merriam. Check out the stellar TOC:

like sentinels • N.E. Taylor & Kendall Evans
What Not to Say to an Alien • F.J. Bergmann
Old Sci-Fi Films • J. J. Steinfeld
On Learning Earthtongues • Terrie Leigh Relf
With Light-Years Come Heaviness • Peg Duthie
Ghazal • Joshua Gage
In The World Above • Carol Dorf
Not Quite Dark Yet • Berit Ellingsen
Patching Wormholes with Pancakes • Chris Benjamin
Patriot’s Day • Marge Simon
tongue lashing • Julie Bloss Kelsey
Adaptation • Jeffrey Park
like father, like daughter • Lisa Bao
The Spacefarer Thinks Back on the Distant Earth • Phillip A. Ellis
On the Return • Susannah Mande

As always, this issue is completely free to read -- and a great sampling of science fiction poets. Why not treat yourself?

on this date in 1961

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:33:29 GMT

. . . and never

looked back again

Yuri

Ann K. Schwader

It's National Poetry Month (in your Inbox)

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:02:07 GMT

Yes, it's National Poetry Month again -- and here I am struggling with a balky fiction project. Talk about the cruelest month . . .

However, I'm still celebrating by getting fresh poetry delivered to my Inbox daily, and so can you. Here are two good sources I've been using:

Poetry Daily Poets' Picks -- check here to sign up.

Knopf Poetry Poem-a-Day -- check here sign up.

I've done both of these poem-a-day programs before, and the only catches appear to be that Poetry Daily is running its annual fund drive this month, & Knopf Poetry would like you to buy books from them. (They're both polite about it, though.) If you're looking to get more poetry into your life this month, these are easy & free ways to do so.

my Goodreads review: The Wine-Dark Sea

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:14:39 GMT

The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was my first experience with Robert Aickman. Nearly every story in this collection was a mind-altering substance, though I can't claim to have enjoyed every single one of them -- or even to have understood every one!

Several did not feel like horror to me, but all were deeply strange in a very British manner. The overall effect was something like reading an updated M.R. James. There are hauntings, both rural and urban. There are family secrets hinted at, though never divulged. In a very few cases ("The Fetch," "Never Visit Venice," "Bind Your Hair"), there are recognizable weird entities.

The Wine-Dark Sea is Dark Literature, with caps fully intentional. If you're looking for elegant prose and non-stop atmosphere, I'm not sure you could do better. Just be ready for some confusion.

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Innsmouth Inktank interview -- in verse

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 21:02:17 GMT

The first interview of Innsmouth Free Press's new column Innsmouth Inktank (by Bryan Thao Worra) just went up today -- and I'm the featured squidling.

A widely published poet himself, Bryan decided to make this a poetic interview. Things got very strange very quickly.

See for yourself, here.

this week on Mars

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:19:07 GMT

red dust

a first glimpse

of fingerprints

Ann K. Schwader

(in celebration of Curiosity paying off . . .)

my Goodreads review: Double Share

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:34:35 GMT

Double Share by Nathan Lowell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not sure why I haven't done a text review for this series yet, but it's past time -- because Golden Age of the Solar Clipper is a remarkable immersive experience (in Podiobook form, anyhow) for those of us who enjoy space opera.

The premise is simple: follow a POV character (the improbably named Ishmael Wang) through his career in a spacefaring version of the merchant marine. Lowell's world-building -- or universe-building -- is detailed, & his characters have depth. This series has gotten me through many treadmill miles and house-cleaning sessions.

Until this volume, however, I was finding the plot a bit mild. No fear this time around! Double Share is the edgiest of the series thus far, placing Our Hero as a newly minted third mate aboard a nastily dysfunctional ship.

I've already put a bit in the Podiobooks tip jar for this one, & downloaded some of Vol. 5 to my iPod. Fans of Lois McMaster Bujold, David Weber, or C.J. Cherryh should definitely try this series, if they haven't already.

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My Goodreads review: The Twelve

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:48:15 GMT

The Twelve by Justin Cronin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As with The Passage, I'm not sure what to call this novel. Thriller horror? Post-apocalypse SF with a side order of mysticism? Literary/genre hybrid? Whatever it is, the series is still working for me. The weaponized vampire virus idea has something to do with it -- as does the discovery that, for once, the Savior of Civilization is a girl person. Cronin's prose style is also a couple of cuts above what I've found in most thrillers, though that's strictly personal taste.

Anyone who lives or ever has lived in the Rocky Mountain West -- particularly Colorado -- is in for some morbid fun with this one. There's nothing quite like seeing the city you're living in (or at least near) made into Ground Zero for the vampire apocalypse, and my college town didn't fare too well either.

This is, as several other reviewers have mentioned, a very long book. At times, I wasn't sure every bit of it was necessary, but Cronin still does an excellent job of keeping the reader interested in each & every character. There are a lot of characters, though, & I found the X-Ray feature on the Kindle edition very useful for keeping them straight.

I'm reluctant to say much about the plot of this one, to avoid spoiling it for others. There's a more satisfying conclusion this time around than there was for The Passage, which was a big relief. I found the narrative to be well-constructed despite its length, with very few really slow spots. Violence toward women was more of a plot point than it might have needed to be, though the violence made sense in context.

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a household of monsters on StarShipSofa

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:03:44 GMT

Steampunks, lovers of classic horror, or anyone else who enjoys a tale told from an unconventional viewpoint won't want to miss StarShipSofa podcast No. 278.

The main fiction this time is "The Mad Scientist's Daughter" by Theodora Goss, and it's one of the most imaginative bits of dark fantasy I've heard in some time. Here's the premise: several of the maddest scientists of Victorian horror (Moreau, Frankenstein, Jekyll . . . ) all had daughters. Very . . . unusual ones.

And they've formed a club for possible world domination.

This is a nearly hour-long delight to listen to, & available as always from the Sofa web site, or on iTunes. If you'd like to read it as well, it appeared originally in Strange Horizons, here. It has recently been reprinted in The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination.

Lovecraft eZine #22 -- here, there, & everywhere

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:41:58 GMT

After a worrisome delay due to editor Mike Davis's illness, the latest issue of Lovecraft eZine is now available in all its mind-blasting formats!

Featuring six stories plus the beginning of a new comic strip, Cthulhu Does Stuff, this issue is 96 pages (or over three hours, for the podcast format) of Lovecraftian tastiness. Authors this time are Ronnie Tucker & Maxwell Patterson, Robin Spriggs, Samantha Henderson, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Don Webb, Joe Nazare, and David Conyers & John Goodrich.,

To get issue #22 for Kindle or Nook, go here. It's $2.99, & buyers can get a free copy of the podcast from Mike as well.

To get the podcast by itself for 99 cents, go here. (I've been very impressed by the quality of this new feature -- issue #21 was a great treadmill distraction!)

And, as ever, you can read the whole issue online for free here.

If you're a Lovecraftian, you really ought to treat yourself to this experience -- and support the eZine, if you can. (Truth in LJing: I do not have a story in this issue, but I've had work in two previous issues, and I'll have more in a forthcoming issue. )

March issue of A Hundred Gourds is up

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:21:17 GMT

The online haiku journal A Hundred Gourds is up now with its March issue.

I'm very happy to report that I have three haiku in this one! Find them here, & here.

(And yes, the last of these is one of the darker haiku I think I've written lately.)

update on Pluto moon names -- the Trek connection

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:35:15 GMT

The SETI poll to name Pluto's latest-discovered tiny moons is over . . . and "Vulcan" & "Cerberus" are the winners.

Thanks to a late name proposal by William Shatner -- & his efforts on Twitter -- Spock's homeworld may provide a name for P4 or P5. It wasn't placed on the ballot for its Trekkish connections, however. It's also the name of the Roman god of fire.

Read all about the voting -- and why this poll doesn't assure these names for Pluto's smallest moons -- here. This article from Space.com also features images & video of Pluto, with all its moons discovered to date.

See all the voting stats here . (Me? I'm a Trekker, but I was still going for "Persephone" & "Eurydice.")

Poetry Foundation article -- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Working Girl"

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:29:42 GMT

  In hopes that I'm not the only Edna St. Vincent Millay fan out there in LJ-land, I'd like to recommend Kate Bolick's recent Poetry Foundation essay, "Working Girl."

  This longish, detailed, & very positive look at Millay's life & writing doesn't gloss over her wild side. However, it also does a good job of explaining her popularity during her life -- imagine the poet as rock star! -- and giving current readers some historical context.

  The article includes several click-through notes, and links to three of Millay's most notable poems.

  Kate Bolick was also interviewed on the Foundation's Poetry off the Shelf podcast for February 13, 2013. Find it here, or download it from iTunes.

Vote to help name Pluto's latest moons

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:47:12 GMT

Would you want to be called P4 or P5? (Yawn.) Well, neither do Pluto's two latest & tiniest moons . .. and their discovery team (plus the SETI Institute) is trying to help. Go to Pluto Rocks to learn more.

Traditionally, names for Pluto's moons come from Greek and Roman myths, & concern Hades or other variants of the Underworld. Come vote for your favorites from 13 candidates, or suggest others on the write-in form.

Voting closes February 25th, & you can vote once per day. ( I'm going to start now.)

Social media comes to the cosmos!

The House of Forever: a review & a reading

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:26:38 GMT

The venerable Amazing Stories' new(ish) online presence offers a refreshing variety of reading options -- including, I'm happy to say, a well-crafted speculative poetry blog by Diane Severson (divadiane1)

Her latest offering is an in-depth review of The House of Forever (Raven Electrick Ink 2012) by Samantha Henderson. I haven't had the pleasure of reading this collection yet, myself -- but this review with its sample poem links certainly makes me wonder why I've waited.

Severson's reading of one sample poem, "When They Woke," is an added treat.

My Goodreads review: Vampires, Zombies, & Wanton Souls

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 22:55:45 GMT

Vampires, Zombies, & Wanton Souls by Marge Simon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a generously-sized collection of supernatural verse (plus two short stories, both well worth reading) from one of spec poetry's most fertile minds, accompanied nearly page by page by art from Sandy DeLuca. Most of these artworks ("illustrations" doesn't begin to cover it) seem either inspired by or inspiration for the skillfully crafted poems, and the majority are in full color.

As suggested by the title, both the poetry and the art veer toward the dark fantasy end of the horror spectrum. The emphasis is on female vamps -- and zombies! -- though Simon delivers considerable variety within these categories.

Fans of either Simon's writing or DeLuca's art, attention: the majority of these poems and artworks are original to this collection.

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