From the latest Authors Guild Bulletin comes this major cringe-inducing gem. Out of respect for the author — because I haven’t read the book and the reviewer might be wrong — I’ve taken out the biography subject’s name.
“Reading [this book] is like watching a moose trying to describe a leopard, using only its front hooves.”
Yesterday in the comments JL asked about Thrillerfest. Here’s the deal: a few years ago a group of thriller writers got together and decided the crime and mystery organizations weren’t necessarily the right fit for the thriller genre.
What’s the difference, you ask? In a mystery, the question is, What’s going on here? Why are these things (usually killings) happening and who’s doing them? In a thriller the issue is, can the good guys outrun the bad guys, either to do some good thing before the bad guys stop them or to stop the bad guys from doing some bad thing? Think MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS vs. DAY OF THE JACKAL.
So these thriller writers formed an organization, International Thriller Writers, and a year or so later they started an annual convention. Many of us writers are members of more than one organization, and I joined ITW when it started, though I’ve never been to Thrillerfest because until now I wasn’t writing thrillers.
But now I am.
Sam Cabot’s BLOOD OF THE LAMB is definitely a thriller, where the good guys race the bad guys to find a secret document so sizzling it could bring down the Catholic Church and threaten all of, literally, Christendom.
And who cares about Sam Cabot’s new book? Get with the program, chickens! Half of Sam Cabot is ME! The other half is Carlos Dews, and we’ll both be at Thrillerfest. On a panel with Doug Preston, among others. Buying drinks for F. Paul Wilson and Steve Berry, who gave us lovely blurbs. And generally hanging with our new-found family. So if you’ll be there, too, come say hi!
I’m watching two newly-fledged bluejays chasing their mother around in the bushes opposite my porch at the Rancho. It’s a major birdarama around here: bad late spring weather caused everyone to migrate late and start nesting late, but good weather since then means everyone’s done well. Purple martins and barn swallows, cardinals, downy woodpeckers (okay, or maybe hairy woodpeckers, I mean seriously, who can tell when they’re hopping up a tree?), catbirds, mockingbirds, starlings, goldfinches, red-winged blackbirds, tiny little wrens, all have visible progeny. The egrets, ospreys, geese and swans — see below — have all nested and produced, also. And a robin’s built a nest outside our kitchen window, which may have seemed like a good idea at the time but right next to it is our back door. She laid her eggs before she discovered that, though, and now all she does is fly into the shrubbery and screech at us whenever we go in and out. Then she hops back in the nest and sits again. We’re expecting hatchlings in the next week or so. I won’t be here for the next couple of weeks — Thrillerfest, Comic Con, and then the workshop in Assisi — and they’ll likely be fledged by the time I get back.
Momma Swan has nine (!) cygnets
Poppa Swan doesn’t think I need to know any more about it
First light on bee balm.
Miniature fireworks
Bright red in dark green.
Robin sits on nest,
Gives affronted cheep and glare,
Turns, shows me her tail.
Baby bluejay squawks,
Waits for adult to notice,
Come back with breakfast.
Bella fans: This long weekend is the first time Bella’s had someone stay in the apartment while I’m away. People have stayed with me, and I’ve gone away and had people come feed her and leave; but this is a first. Now, it’s someone she’d already met, and the only friend of mine she’d ever liked — Rita stayed with me months ago and Bella came out to greet her, and even spent part of the night with her. But no one else has ever seen this cat with the exception of one of the feed-and-leave catsitters, who came in while she was at her dish and thus caught her by accident in my cul-de-sac of a kitchen. So I told Rita not to worry if Bella never appeared the whole time she was here.
Well.
It seems Bella is not, in fact, a one-person cat. She’s a one-person-at-a-time cat. Reports are she’s all over Rita, on her lap, on her bed, greeting her every time she walks in the door. I guess Bella draws a real distinction between visiting (bad) and residing (good). If you’re visiting, who knows what you might be up to, even if what you seem to be up to is feeding her? But with me gone, and someone else in residence, a cat’s got to look out for herself, right?
Go Bella!
From my porch at Rancho Obsesso.
Cherish freedom, keep the communications lines open, be brave, be kind.
On the bus. Four-year-old girl behind me talking to five-year-old cousin: “Did you ever think about the germs inside your body? The good germs and the bad germs? What if the head bad germ took out his sword and told the head good germ, ‘If you kill my best guy I’ll kill everybody?’ What would you do then?” Pause, no answer from cousin. Little girl: “I only have three more weeks until I go to college.”
I love New York.
My grandmother had a house in Far Rockaway when I was little. I was in my first hurricane out there; I remember standing in the doorway watching the water come up to the second porch step. The powerful wind, the rain going sideways — it was thrilling and I loved it. I wasn’t scared. I lived in the Bronx. We were afraid of some things but I never knew you ever had to be afraid of rain.
This is James Russell’s report on the rebuilding of the Rockaways after Sandy.
Half-concealed by shrub
Deer munches on undergrowth,
Will not show herself.
Male sparrow singing
Tree to tree around the yard,
Marking his domain.
Baby catbird squawks,
Chases mother into oak,
Hoping for a worm.
