Our knight in carpenter’s guise, Scott, helped us get the two big 10’x10′ canopies furled for the winter and set down to dry. THat’s huge. We let them stay up one winter, and nearly lost the gazebo, as the snow piled up and up. Now we take them down for the winter, having better sense.
It’s going to be rain for most of the week, changing to snow at night, then melting, and raining, and snowing…welcome to the start of a typical Spokane winter.
We are letting the kitty-boys meet and squall at each other, but it is slowly, very slowly, getting less frantic and constant. Tanner instigates most of it by yowling and attacking, but he’s getting the idea that we disapprove of this. Slowly. At least he’s retreating when we yell at him and our cats seem to think we’re on their side, so they de-poof faster. I THINK this is progress.
The therapy sessions are working well for Jane and for me. I started with a constant limp and a lot of pain, both of which are far less frequent. Most times I can actually hit a decent stride. Jane’s condition is worse, and takes longer, but the pain is diminishing.
We are slowly putting up Christmas, and it will be a little ‘less’ decor than usual: so much of the stuff is in the basement piled way deep in boxes, as we have had to move things to accommodate the work down there. Scott is redoing the basement so we have a craft area, an exercise area, and a library. And guest accommodations, at need. There is still a lot of stuff to get rid of. But where we have remodeled is wonderful: everything has a place and returns to it. THis is wonderful. When I cook, I know exactly where every knife is, each having a slot, and everything is an easy reach, the dishes get washed and the whole thing just functions beautifully.
May the craft room be similar.
Meanwhile we are trying to help our former coach, Joan, who had foot surgery, get to her sessions with the same therapist. She lives within easy drive of us, and we are going, we think, to go over to get her in her car, and then come get her out of it when she gets back. She can’t lift her push-thingie out of the car while standing on one foot, strange to say.
Anyway, we are grey and rainy today, not a bad thing. And I am working away on Divergence, which is the novel that follows the one that’s in production now, and of course January 8th, Alliance RIsing comes out. I wrote all the Alliance Union books so they can, with a few exceptions (Heavy Time/Hellburner) be read in any order. But this comes at the very beginning of everything that follows, howzzat for an explanation.
“comes at the very beginning of everything that follows” I’m going to have to think about that one. Too much on my plate just at the moment to dive into an orgy of Alliance rereads, but will make a point of it before January 8th. In the meantime, I’ll just have to content myself with looking forward to it.
I take CJ as meaning, “…everything that follows HT/Hb”.
Amusing if you’ve never read it–
The Tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo:
https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/Jul/gazebo.html
It seemed clear enough to me… and once again brings home the time dilation aspect of the whole Company War arc (not that it hasn’t been stated before in the various books). Based on the Amazon tease, AR has as a main character James Robert Neihart, which, to me, reminds us that one generation of timestretched adults pretty much saw the entire span of the War (Mallory–and of course all the captains–JG, etc.). I don’t recall it ever having been explicitly said (though it can undoubtedly be gleaned from CJC’s timelines on This Site), but the War feels as if it lasted for considerably more than a century, at least that’s how it feels. Pretty cool.
(I need to re-read the Company War books in prep for AR anyway–oh darn–but we for sure have a very clear statement of what year encompasses HT: “What time is it?” LOL
Oh, boy, am I looking forward to Alliance Rising! — And Downbelow Station and Pride of Chanur were my first introductions to CJ’s writing. I was hooked right away. So this is, in a way, coming full circle.
We had a brief cold snap here for about a week, with a last hurrah yesterday, and now it’s back to 70’s highs and 50’s lows. But wait five minutes, and it will change. We could have that for Christmas, or freezing; no knowing yet, but doubtful. Looks like we’re getting mild, spring-like / autumn-like weather, but that’s a month away. (And then the book comes as a late holiday present! Yay!)
Oh. Smokey (Mr. Assertive) has decided everything has been way too wacky lately. It seems he’s decided to hide _under_ the covers and sleep. OK, kitty. There are days I could sympathize, haha! Goober’s also on the bed, snoozing. – This evening, I plan to read. I will need the break after working on the Great Reshuffle Unshuffle and Box-Search today.
You’ll have sympathy for this situation. Vancouver’s Chinatown is very proud of the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden, which features a traditional koi pond, with venerable and traditional koi. At least it did until last week when a river otter moved in, to the decimation of the inhabitants. This being Vancouver, terminating the otter with extreme prejudice is not an option. Officialdom has been trying to catch and relocate the otter but so far it has been smarter/faster than the humans. This has been a major talking point among the citizenry. Neighboring businesses have been selling buttons so people can declare their allegiance to Team Otter or Team Koi. The object is to raise funds to replace the fish when the otter is finally caught and moved, although this may not be easy as it seems; some of the koi were quite old and pricy. Thank your lucky stars you haven’t had any predators worse than the raccoons.
Back in the 80s and early 90s, I was working in a office park adjoining one with a largish pond (and a fake stream from a small “waterfall”) that was stocked with small koi. Then the local egret(s) found it. They had to put screening over the entire pond, to keep the fish from being devoured. (I only ever saw one bird there at any time, but it was a great egret, almost as big as a great blue heron.)
The otter koi oughta be more coy o’ koi otters.
(Gotta love English!)
‘Tis with an otter lack of egret (and otter) that I chuckle and wince at your pun, good sir.
Otters are smart, fast, and probably the only option is to disguise the lurking trappers as koi. Or to find SOME sound that deters them.
WOL, you might be interested in the latest pattern e-book at Infinite Twist: all their cephalopod patterns (except the original Opus the Octopus) in one book. (the original pattern for Opus is at Knitty.) They also have bamboo circulars with stainless-steel cables, $20 for a five-needle set (US2-6 or US7-10.5).
Speaking of Koi, the Nishikigoi House Socks on Infinite Twist are amazing.
I’ve long regarded Heavy Time/Hellburner as one book in two volumes… but initially had the misfortune to read ’em out of order. Whoops!
The Alliance-universe story I’d love to see is what becomes of the ship that goes off into the deep dark at the book’s end (cannot recall which book, most of the titles refuse to lock to their stories in my head). Have wondered if that might be the hani-side first contact.
That was “Corinthian”, ummm, in “Tripoint”?
Remember, the knnn took several human ships before it could be communicated that it’d be better not.
I read Asimov’s Foundation trilogy out of order (Second Foundation should logically be the second book, I said what I said) and somehow made sense out of it. I think I managed to read Heavy Time/Hellburner properly. After the Asimov debacle I always check now.
My first encounter with CJC was with The Faded Sun – I bought this book–Shon’jir–at least partly because there was a pretty girl holding a sword on the cover (for sure it’s why I picked it up in the first place!), even though sword-n-sorcery really wasn’t a thing for me, then or now. Then read ‘Kutath’, before going back to ‘Kesrith’. I somehow survived it. 😀
Winter has arrived in New Hampshire.
If this is a wish list, I would love to read the story of Pyanfar stepping onto Earth Station or better yet Downbelow Station.
But as alway, since Ms. Cherryh does the work, she calls the shots – she also has to write books that her publishers think will sell.
I suspect the publisher has a much to say. Who DOES own the publishing rights?
I’d certainly expect that an established author of CJC’s status retains all rights.
Unless it’s a work for hire, and I’ve only done one—the Lois and Clark novel, because I had urgent need for a new roof—the writer retains the rights, but leases them for a lengthy period under stated conditions. Now my contracts lease the e-rights until a given book returns less than 100 a year.
Interesting! Are there any books you’d like us to stop buying? 😉
I would like to see a Hani crew in orbit around Pell’s star; that would be an enjoyable story. I would also like to see what became of the planet called Snow.
Went out half an hour ago for the late-day mailbox check – sometimes it doesn’t arrive until after 4pm – and it was starting to mist, here in northwest L.A. We’re supposed to get about 3/4 of an inch in this storm running through tomorrow. More predicted for next week, so it’s now the rainy season (with lots of wind in between storms).
“and of course January 8th, Alliance RIsing comes out.”
This makes me immensely happy. I’m not sure how the time flew as somehow something like Black Panther came out in 2018 and everyone agrees that feels like at least three years ago. Time keeping has been challenging. Happy it’s coming out soon. I was just reboxing some things for another move and looked at my stack of Alliance/Union and thought about doing a reread once things settle down.
Alliance Rising – Breads in Space.
Maniacal laughter. Love CJ and Jane and the English language.
Although I’m not sure it’s Yeast of Eden, I could see starship crews wearing doughboy hats. 😉
Semi-Off-Topic: Ooh, Netflix now has Serenity, the movie, but not Firefly, the TV series. (Not yet. One can hope.) — Oh! I have no idea where my Jayne hat landed. Must remedy this.
Off-Topic: LOL, got to go through boxes and reorganize in self-defense. So far, finding things, but hahaha, it’s like I moved in again. Priority for this morning: Where’s the laundry soap, and where are my clean sheets? Hoping I can find these without too much effort.
I will be taking time to relax later and _read_. — I _think_ I have Tripoint pb here. I’m sure I have Heavy Time and Hellburner in ebook, through Closed-Circle.net. — But first, I want to finish my reread of Finity’s End. (I was halfway through before Real Life got weird and interrupted.) I’d started the Morgaine series (reread) while at the hotel, so I do want to finish it, but think I can do a simultaneous read without commingling the plots.
Shirley you mean “Salads in Space”?
It’s now raining steadily and hard in Orange County, the one south of Los Angeles. (Orange Counties are also in many other states, I presume named after the fruit towards the south, as in CA, and William of Orange/Oranje.)
___
I think the publishing rights probably depends on the age of the contracts involved. I expect HT and Hb contracts did not grant the publisher digital publishing rights, so CJ was free to publish them on CC.
Later contracts include digital publishing which leads to the annoying situation that a poor scan of a book on obscure_domain.net for an exorbitant price means the book is “in print”, preventing rights from reverting to the author.
Authors are relatively powerless: sign the contract as written or don’t get paid. The publisher can suck all the rights, possibly including movie rights, and keep them locked as long as the work is nominally “in print”, as above.
A few companies don’t let rights revert to the author, allowing so-called “buy and bury” or “catch and kill”. Reportedly, a number of political stories have suffered this fate. I presume these are actually implemented using Non-Disclose Agreements (NDAs).
J. K. Rowling happened to print with a small and obscure publisher, Bloomsbury, who didn’t strip her of non-book rights. Similarly, George Lucas finagled Star Wars merchandising rights from Fox (I think?) which made him rich–a mistake film companies no longer make.
But generally, and in keeping with the US Constitution’s wording allowing copyright, authors should have greater protection. Perhaps only the decision that corporations are people allows them to hold intellectual property.
After a very dry summer we’re having a very mild autumn so far. It’s getting cooler, we’ve had some grey and drizzly days, a bit of mist, and a few rainshowers, but not nearly as much bad weather (with lots of wind and rain) as is usual in my experience.
Last night the daily weather report even mentioned that we’d need six months of rain to get back up to the expected level of yearly downfall, and we’re not in monsoon territory up here in northwest Europe.
After the first summer ever in which I remember the roadside grass being scorched completely dry and yellow, we’ve had enough drizzle since September that lawns and parks and verges are green again, but there is still a lot less rain than expected: autumn and winter are usually stormy and wet here. Though I enjoy the nice weather, I can understand that water managers, farmers and river shipping are concerned.
We’re in the delta for some large rivers so not likely to run out of water soon, but the river levels are down enough that for navigable depths the larger ships need to stick to the channels.
The Meuse is a rainfall-fed river, and with the effects of climate change being felt here in both longer and hotter dry spells, and more sudden extreme cloudbursts when it does rain, it is set to become less reliable and more prone to sudden flooding, unless Belgium takes measures to slow runoff after cloudbursts.
Even the Rhine, which is much larger and starts as a glacial-melt river in Switzerland (that creates more dependable flow) and adds rainfall drainage on the way from Germany and a bit of France, has already become more temperamental due to runoff from extreme rainfall events in Germany. Once the Swiss glaciers are mostly gone (global warming is already affecting them, they are retreating fast: in the 30 years we holidayed in the same spot in Switzerland, we’ve seen ‘our’ two glaciers lose about a third of their extent) even the Rhine will become just as variable and unreliable as the Meuse. Watershed-wide coöperation will be needed to keep the rivers both navigable and safe. At the downstream end we’re rather at the mercy of what happens upstream: if German towns suffering cloudbursts quickly channel their excess water into the river and away, we’ll be the ones getting flooded. And vice versa during droughts – if too much of the water upstream is used for irrigation the levels in the river could drop too low to be navigable; not something the Rhine has had to contend with before, and it is a heavily-used shipping route for bulk transport barges from the port of Rotterdam into Germany. Luckily, there are international agreements to consult on water management issues; these are going to need to be a lot more proactive than was necessary in the past, but the necessary cooperation is starting to develop.
Those effects are a lot more foreseeable and mitigateable than the extreme heat and drought caused forest fires, more and worse hurricanes and tornadoes, and the expected temperature rises during heatwaves to beyond liveable ranges in other parts of the world.
I was being a bit tongue in cheek in my first comment. I have two more Xmas balls to knit and 2 more washcloths to knit and I’m done with my Xmas knitting (a couple more days should do it). Then I will be able to indulge myself in an orgy of (re)reading.
I broke the screen on my el cheapo 10-inch tablet and replaced it with a reconditioned Kindle Fire 10-inch. The adverts are annoying but endurable to get a cheap tablet that will display enough text at a time in a see-able print size that I’m not having to poke the screen quite so often to turn the page.
However, all my CJC books are in dead tree editions, so my Alliance reread won’t be a problem.
A woman of my aquaintance, I ate lunch almost daily in the establishment she managed for about 15 years, gave me a couple of knitted woolen “washclothes” a couple years ago. I found they made excellent pot holders however.
I’m sure hani spacers had your “dead-tree” books with them for entertainment. Hard to break and no other enabling technology required.
I would always be in favor of more books in Compact space, hani, mahendo’sat, stsho, kit, knnn, t’ca/chi, humans, whoever else might happen along. Every time I reread, I find something else to think about, questions old and new. There’s so much packed in there. On my last reread, I found myself wondering a lot more about the mahen and stsho, and more about the nature of hani, how much was cultural versus biological in how they thought of female and male roles. I wish we could see more in that part of space, or how they ensure outward.
I still wonder from my last reread of Merchanter’s Luck, what the juniors and junior-juniors think of Lucy’s ship’s computer, with Sandy’s older brother’s voice and tutorials as a ghostly presence. The mention at the end of the kids from Dublin Again coming over to clean up and do repairs to get her other sections space-worthy and ready for new crew, I thought was a neat hook for a sequel, though it may have been just there to give an optimistic and curious end to the story. (I found myself understanding Sandor a lot more, based on my real-world life experience, the last reread.)
Recently, I ran across the name, “Macian,” as related to or deriving from ancient sources in and around Greece, Thrace, Macedonia, and others. I then wondered if the name Mazian is a variant. I took it that Macian is related to the Macedonians, a place-name or name for a people that becomes a name for a singular person from that country, like Thracius. (I was surprised to learn the English name Trace, Tracy, Tracey (such as Spencer Tracy or Trace Adkins (Atkins?) is derived from a French word derived from the name for Thracia.) I just find things like that fascinating. (I once knew two brothers named Jodie and Tracy. I sympathize. They may always have problems with people and forms mistaking their gender. My first name (not Benjamin, my second name and why I go by Ben) is even more easily confused. No, not Marion, like John Wayne’s real name.)
—–
In cleaning up, I found one hexagonal end table had been invaded by insects, and today or tomorrow, I will see what I can salvage, because there were books stored in there, mostly used paperbacks. I think wiping the covers will do it, unless the damage is worse than I think. I may have to toss those and buy again. Sigh.
But because of that, I’ve ordered 6×9 inch poly zip baggies to shield the books and prevent further incursions. I am very glad my main bookcase is fine.
I spent yesterday and part of today finding things in the Great Reshuffle, and cleaning up items to sell or donate.
@BCS, totally off-topic, about fonts. I just encountered a twitter thread about fonts that are designed to help dyslexic people with reading, and just generally make reading easier (like the beelines colorchanging app mentioned lower down the thread). I didn’t know these existed, and thought maybe you would find this interesting too; but maybe you already knew about this.
Some of the linked articles go into more depth on the important technicalities like kerning, spacing, weighing capitals or I saw one that weighted the bottom of letters so they don’t flip as easily.
Hanneke, thank you. I have not seen very much on dyslexia and readability / legibility studies, as to what does or does not help in a font’s design. I’d like to know more. I once had a customer whose grown son was dyslexic, but aside from letter transposition, or difficulty reading, I didn’t know much about it.
The Twitter feed on that seems to have two main camps: people who are thrilled to find those fonts and the app, any resources; versus people who say there’s minimal proof of it improving readability, but still, that things are needed to help dyslexic folks.
I had seen two dyslexic legibility fonts before. One was probably the open/libre font mentioned. The other was another recently at FontSquirrel.com, though I’d need to look back to find it. IIRC, it started with a C.
For legibility fonts in general, the needs of low-resolution printing (such as for newspapers or laser or inkjet printers, esp. in the early days) and good on-screen legibility, have made it a priority recently, and designers have been trying various things in an attempt to make something both highly readable and beautiful. — But some of the earliest “legibility fonts” (the term used) were Century Schoolbook, other Century types, Clarendon, Helvetica, Univers, and a few others. — However, several recent fonts designed for screen (computer and tablet and cell phone) use have tried to improve this too.
There are certain things that people in general find easier to read, and then things that might help vision-impaired people or dyslexic people. There seems to be a lot of overlap there; basically, if it’s readable, it’s readable for everyone, oversimplifying. But not enough on what specifically might help dyslexic folks. (Audio, of course, but dyslexics need help with reading too.) — The color app looked like a really unusual and maybe helpful idea. My one issue there would be that some people have difficulty with some color or contrast issues. (For example, if there’s too little difference, it’s harder to read.)
Neat stuff — I read through the thread (maybe all of it, I’m not a Twitter user) and will look at the fonts and notes.
@BCS, for the Beeline reader color app, if I understood it correctly, you can set your own colors – so if you’re red-green colorblind you can adjust it to not use the black – blue – red color graduation depicted, but use something else instead of red.
It’s not specifically built to help with dyslexia, but to make it easier for anyone who reads on screens to follow the lines of text.
I would like to see a Hani crew in orbit around Pell’s star; that would be an enjoyable story. I would also like to see what became of the planet called Snow.
Another speculation about Alliance Rising, for CJ and Jane to enjoy.
It’s set some time after the war, because there wasn’t an Alliance earlier. There are two James Robert Neiharts. This is the second one, JR in Finity’s End, who is now a captain.
So this book comes at the very end of the Company Wars sequence, and therefore “at the very beginning of everything that follows”.
Interesting thought, GW, but not so fitting with a title of Alliance Rising, versus, say, Alliance Resurgent. It’ll be fun to find out!
The last two days have been odd; not bad, just weird. — However, a little progress and a little humor:
Humor first: Today, I was supposed to get a delivery; nothing earth-shaking, but the Ott-lite PJ Evans mentioned, plus a sink dish drainer and another equally mundane item. — And I thought at first, those had been delivered to the office again. (I swear, they don’t knock and half the time, I think they don’t even try to find the apt., and just leave it at the office. Or they tiptoe by, drop it off, and go.) Or in this case, the humorous yet vaguely worrisome bit. After determining no, the delivery didn’t arrive at my door, some time later, there was a knock on my door. Was I Ben? (In a very unsure accent, maybe more Brazilian Portuguese, but not quite a regular Spanish accent.) Yes, yes I am. Hi! The neighbor lady had received a package for me. I followed and she handed it off, I introduced myself again, and…didn’t get a name, or I missed it. :-/ And I think I know which apt., but got slightly turned around on the way back. (So it was several apartments and a couple of turns. I didn’t catch the apt. number. Heh, did, though, speak briefly to her and to a teenage(?) daughter / relative / friend. And (hah) was greeted by a black kitten maybe two or three months old, diffident but willing to sniff my leg and my offered hand. So at least the kitten thinks I’m sort of OK, even I the humans are not as sure. 🙂
I wonder if I simply didn’t catch it and she said her name, or if she really did not, although we shook hands. — And hey, we live in the same complex. I have no interest in causing any of my neighbors any problems. I am aware too that folks who are immigrants or naturalized citizens or otherwise are more wary now, because of the nonsense going on from racist / supremacist people. I would like to think that it would be fairly easy to tell that I’m friendly. (My Spanish and French accents are good, even if my vocab and grammar are not as fluent as I want.) — But I am still not used to simply switching languages. Back in college, I was getting good enough with French that I could _think_ in French, and had times when I’d catch myself writing notes in class using a French word or abbreviation, or I’d dream with French phrases along with English. So I _know_ that will return, once I get fluent enough again, and once I get into the habit of “code-switching” between English and Spanish (etc.). I know truly bilingual friends can switch mid-sentence and not think anything of it, because they are truly fluent, and whichever language fits best to the thought they want to express, is what gets used.
Anyway, I thought it was nice to get to (almost, halfway) meet someone, even if it went a little awry. Still not bad, and it might lead to better things. (I sure hope.) I got my package. (Amazon just ships stuff, one package or several, to get it there faster, never mind if it was one order.)
And I guess that kitten thinks I’m acceptable as humans go. Which, you know, is good.
—–
A bit of progress on box-sorting / unpacking / cleanup, etc. Slow but happening. And in much better shape now.
Writing: Today, I wrote down several ideas and a couple of partial chapters. — But still, these are disjointed, separate ideas. That’s good, though; it’s the first time in a while that I’ve been happy with my productivity for that. So time away helped clear things up.
Another story idea and a starting chapter connected with scraps of ideas that have been floating around for a few months and got written down. So I dumped those together into a folder to combine into one file or two, and see what I can get from there towards a story. — I have the background and at least three situations, but not a plot to hang on this merged idea. I think that’s still percolating; that’s why I think I have two files, stories, there for now. I have characters, but I feel like these ought to merge down into something more complete. So this is an improvement from what’s been happening lately.
On the other hand, I keep having a lot of autobiographical or wish-fulfillment stuff trying to intrude. For a while there, I was trying to channel that into writing practice or to make stories with that kind of thing. — Er, but those seem to be my mind still trying to deal with being gay and having grown up so conflicted about it. So I am not sure any of that will ever find its way out of a writing folder into anything public. — I am not sure what, if anything, that’s resolving, except to work through it a little. Maybe it’s helping me get a mental handle on it, I don’t know. But for a while there, it felt like I was just spinning my wheels, not resolving anything and not generating anything story-wise that I thought would be OK publicly, such as on a story site or in an ebook. (That said, I’ve seen good amateur writing and some really not-good amateur writing, and I think mine is at least above average. So if I could get something I’m happy with, it could happen.)
I am still trying to get myself over the latest writing plateau and get character, backstory / world-building, and plot arcs (especially the latter) all going into something finished. — I seem to be good at world-building / story-universe ideas, and OK at characters. But I still am not sure my characters are distinct enough from each other. Some are, some are not. Some are more fully realized, and some feel like just sketches, outlines. Getting plots going, besides some key scene(s) that inspire me, is still a weak spot.
Any time I try to outline, I end up jumping into details on the writing itself, so I end up writing and not planning first. When I jump in without an outline, which seems to be my default, it ends up wandering around or incomplete, and oh, I get my characters into long speeches that stop the action or the timing. (Similar to my posting style, darn it.)
I still feel like such a beginner at writing fiction. I have seen fellow fans who write original fiction or who write in a given fandom in fan fiction, and some of these are really good, talented. I’ve seen LGBT fiction online or in books/ebooks, and hmm, it varies from the slush pile to average to good writing. — And based on seeing things online, plus when I was an amateur, volunteer editor online, I can say that I think it shows just about immediately, in the first chapter or two, if a writer or a story has got what it takes. That’s true for complete beginners or for teens or adults. The talent is the thing. Some people can tell a story, even if they are shaky on textbook grammar, spelling, punctuation, stylistics. Some are good at it even at secondary school level. (And some pro writers in SF&F began selling stories in high school, at least back in the day. Not sure about these days.)
So, well, today, I wrote instead of reading. Likely will try some more this evening, before knocking off for the night.
But I’m overdue to take time out to read, as I was busy doing household chores, except for today.
So I am still trying to do something I think I should be able to do already, even if not expertly: writing fiction.
CJ and many others make it look so easy, but fitting together characters and plot lines and world-building, with a compelling story and characters we want to know more about? They make this look so easy. — I am still trying to do something I’m really satisfied with. I’m still learning, so new at it. (And hmm, I can get a few chapters done, but getting a full story done mostly still eludes me, and wow, not giving away too much too soon, getting all the bits going as little bits that add up to a whole? I am still trying to learn this.) So CJ and others amaze me.
During the week, more household chores (boxes, phooey!) and I need time also to read ad watch videos and to write and do fonts. Still much to do.
Our kitchen remodel is complete! What a difference this had made in the usability of our formerly cramped feeling kitchen. We added about 25% more counter workspace and about 10% more storage space, but being able to put everything away in a semi-logical location increases usable counter space and the improved lighting makes everything brighter and more spacious seeming.
On another note: Alliance Rising deals with the time before the split between the Alliance and the Compact, and prior to the establishment of the major trading routes. CJC read the preliminary 1st chapter at Bubonicon Albuquerque in 2017. All I can say is WOW! I’ve had it pre-ordered since it became available on Amazon mid-summer this year. As such, you don’t NEED to re-read any of the Alliance Universe books, as the Alliance Rising activity happens before any of the other books. I wouldn’t let that stop anyone from reading any of the Goddess’ books, but this will be a great entry place for new readers.
Yay!
@Ready, congratulations on getting your kitchen remodeling done, with pleasing results.
Thanks for the hint about Alliance Rising. Good to hear it’s a new entry point, that might get a new generation of readers interested in all the older books in this universe as well. I hope the publisher puts in not only the entire list (not just the ones they themselves publish), but also a hint where to get those that are republished on Closed-circle – maybe in an afterword by the author?
This is important to note; our library system only has about half of the Alliance/Compact novels, and has shown no interest in replacing the missing ones (Cataloging flatly refuses to add anything more than about 7-8 years old). Happy to be able to fill the gaps!
Ready, good to hear your kitchen is finished and is much more useful than before. Sometimes it seems like remodeling is an endless carousel, but when you at least get to a stopping point and are pleased with the result, that makes it somewhat worthwhile.
Weeding is the bane of effective readers’ advisory work. It used to drive me nuts trying to recommend authors when the first volume of everything was no longer in system (when trying to talk up a new author you’ve got to have the book in hand – it does no good to say “oh it’s terrific, wait a couple of weeks while I put it on interlibrary loan for you”)
I’ve always thought one of the strengths of my library system was the depth of our collection. And I don’t have too much trouble getting Acquisitions to replace worn copies of the classics. Problems arise when the barbarians who weed are poor in identifying what will be classics of the future.
Because libraries don’t have any “last copy” policy (if you are the only library in you area with something, you should hang onto it) it has long been water-cooler debate among librarians that the most ephemeral items will be popular fiction of the mid-20th Century. Before this time there was a chance that they were printed on somewhat durable paper and after there could be electronic versions extant. If you wanted to do a thesis on the genius and lasting impact of Frank Yerby for example, I predict you’d be out of luck unless you have access to your granny’s attic.