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Singapore is full of delights. Culinary, in particular, but also cultural. I had an amazing time last year with the 60th anniversary, with the cultural institutions exhibiting early Singapore artifacts that tied directly to the novel I was writing. This year I had a couple of things on my wish list. But, then, something popped up on my Instagram feed, something right up my alley. The Portals Experience. Link here.
Anyway, my son and daughter-in-law liked the idea too, being geeks like me. Portals is in Scots Road, fairly central. What is Portals? Well SF and Fantasy, a whole spectrum of books, book cover art, figurines, dioramas, games, genre discussion. It was truly amazing and I think I needed a season ticket to get the full effect of it. It opens up the whole world of cover art and books. The early SF. The early art. I’m thinking AI is going to kill the future of cover art and I hate that. These covers were amazing, just like the stories were. Amazing and new at the time. The SF, Fantasy and Horror genres reek with creative imagination of the other worldly and it’s not just books and cover art. There are games, game art, figurines, dioramas–whole scenes of imagined worlds. There are archetypes and there is genre growth and evolution and Portals gives more than a glimpse into this.
I thoroughly recommend this event. I asked one of the staff members if the exhibit will travel elsewhere and she thought not. It took the organizer two years to put together and now they will be looking to store the contents when the exhibition ends September 1, I think. So you have all of August to check it out.
The store was amazing too. You could by first edition SF paper backs, art prints (with half the revenue going to the artists), art postcards (same deal) and other geek stuff.
I will share some photos. It is five stars all round. No loos on site so come prepared.
Image 1. Panels of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazines. There were several panels of different magazines on display.
Image 2 An example of a panel with book, game and figurine and artwork Warcraft
Image 3 Examples of book displays in the first room
Image 4 Film, artifacts and book Planet of the Apes
Image 4 Examples of early SF books
Image 5 An early book that I had not read
Image 6 Figurines–These were done by themes, exploring different cultural origins
Image 7 Eastern tradition
Image 8 Greek inspired figurines
Image 9
Image 10 Map
A short clip of Atlantis Diorama
And a short clip of one of my favorite parts- The book slider loop thing
Obviously I have way more photos and video but this is just a taste. You should get along to see if if in Singapore and if you are heading to Singapore soon, check it out.
Also, we went to Alice Boulangerie and Restaurant. I had an amazing burger. I couldn’t have the prawn pasta or the lobster pasta because they put fish roe in there. (I needed to google the ingredients). Amazing pastries in the display too. Great service.
Otherwise I have stayed at home and worked on book stuff. Like all day. On the weekend we are booked for the Ginger Lily High Tea at the Hilton in Orchard. Stay tuned.
I have been putting this post off for a while. At first the grief was too raw. Then it was too hard to bear so shutting it away where I couldn’t see it or feel it seemed a better option.
It’s been nearly a month since he passed. I can’t believe it has been that long or that time passed so quickly.
I first met Russell on line. Back in the day, Harper Collins Voyager had a online bulletin board, cutely named the ‘Purple Zone’ and there readers could interact with authors, well those that chose to hang out. It was moderated by F8, who is still knocking around somewhere. The purple zone was one of the places where I let people now about Conflux in 2004, the Australian National Science Fiction Convention that was held in Canberra that I was chair of. A number of the people on there became friends in real life. Obviously Russell was one of those.
Russell had just had Across the Face of the World published in 2004 and I was heading to NZ for a family trip. I reached out to Russell and we met up in Hamilton. He’d not long moved there from Christchurch and was planning on building a house and was working at the University of Waikato. I mean in those days, you could meet people from the Internet, just saying! Russell, me and my two daughters and younger son met up. We went to Hobbiton. In those days it was a ruin, but there were still some things to see, remains of hobbit holes, the party tree and stories. Russell took us to his favourite fish and chip place in nearby Matamata. And I encouraged him to come to Conflux, offered accommodation etc.
The purple zone was where I met and befriended Glenda Larke as well. I visited her in Malaysia back then.
So Russell came to Conflux and then also started attending writing retreats. First one was Yackandandah, the next Metung and more. In those days, Trudi C and Paul came along, and besties Kylie and Nicole. We also used to chat online in real time in the Harper Collins Voyager hosted chat room, then later when they closed that, on Yahoo chat.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, Kylie and Russell began to correspond and fall in love. At this time, I had started going out with Matthew. Kylie moved to New Zealand to be with Russell. They hosted a writing retreat at this lovely home in Keri Keri and then later moved back to Australia.
I think that’s when we settled into a groove. We had weekend writing retreats, dinners, hung out, talked. Russell was always a good listener and supporter. I remember when I started my Phd, he had doubts but he supported me and listened to me as I raved on about philosophers and writing academically and the challenges of doing a PhD. You really did need to be a self starter. Russell was also a cartographer and did some maps for me for Dragon Wine and Argenterra. He also did a few workshops on maps–showing us weird historical maps, how cultural and religious imperatives governed maps and more. He also was a music buff and did a presentation at one of the Conflux’s on science and music and how music had been optimistic about the future and science and then how it turned negative. Absolutely fascinating. Russell was also mad about Lego and his collection was amazing. I don’t know how he did all the things. For the first while when he moved to Australia, he wasn’t working much but then he got an opportunity to tutor at the University of Canberra and then ended up over the years running courses as that’s what he had trained to do. He excelled at teaching and loved it. He did like to lecture but I loved finding out stuff from him. Anyway, we were buddies and his friendship network grew in Canberra. Nicole M, Shauna, Kim, Cat, Rob, Angie and Ian and lots more. He was loved and respected.
Did I mentioned he liked to lecture! But always in a nice way I thought. He was the font of all knowledge as far as I was concerned. He was also handy and would come to help with things around the house. We even went half in a whipper snipper back in the day when we first bought our places.
The hardest thing was Covid 19. That changed things a lot. Russell had medical anxiety even before then so it was harder to connect with Russell during and after Covid. However, we did, even it if was one lone birthday dinner and cake. In the time he was in Canberra, his son came to live and met his partner and had a kid and Russell became related to Cat and Rob. Lol. I love this. They also grew close too.
I think on Russell and Kylie and their life together and I feel that Russell’s life was enriched and so was Kylie’s. They had good times together. Kylie had the knack of getting people to talk and she definitely had Russell talking about his feelings. They made a beautiful house together, full of warmth and joy. It is Kylie who my thoughts are with the most. All of his closest friends are suffering and mourning him. But Kylie was his partner, the person who knew him best. And Russell would want us all to support her and look after her. Love you, Kylie!
So what happened you might ask. Russell was fit, teaching, cycling, and enjoying life until he had symptoms of pneumonia. He said to me the antibiotics are working and that he was on his second round. The doctor then thought to test for lung cancer. Meanwhile, Russell started feeling unwell, just odd things and Kylie would take him to the ER. Eventually he got admitted after a few visits as things weren’t right. I talked to Russell in the hospital and he was so anxious about his health he could not eat. He had cancer but didn’t know what type. They did a scan and it was in his lungs, liver, spleen, hip etc. I talked to him another day and they had taken him for a brain scan and it was in his brain and that was his worst fear. His intellect was under threat, his life was in the balance. When they sequenced the biopsy, it was melanoma. He was slated for immunotherapy and there was hope.
Meanwhile, I had trouble sleeping. I kept worrying that Russell’s illness was too far gone, that he didn’t have time for treatment. Sadly, this is what happened. I saw him after the first treatment and Russell was laid out by it. He said, the trouble is Donna, the untreated me is not very well. He went back into hospital and then every day more bad news. By 26 June, he was gone. A few short weeks and he was gone. So many tears over his passing.
His mob, his friends, we just needed to be together with other people who understood our loss. We ate New Zealand lollies and toasted Russell with Coke Zero, his drink of choice.
Now as I’m in Singapore, I will miss his memorial. There wasn’t a funeral as was his wish. I loved Russell as a friend and I will miss him. I thought he would be giving the eulogy at my funeral. He was a year younger than me. But life is not fair. Cancer is not fair.
Is there anger? Yes, there is rage against the unfairness of this. Why some people get time to live with cancer, maybe even get into remission. Alas, our friend Russell was not one of these.
I try to imagine that Russell is here somewhere. Not gone. Just elsewhere. It is my coping mechanism. All I could do on the day he died was dedicate The Founders’ Legacy to him as I was launching it on the day he died.
He was a stalwart friend of the keenest mind. I am better for knowing you Russell.
An older photo from when I launched one of his books at a NZ SF convention in Auckland. It was my early days with Matthew and the start of his life with Kylie. So an old photo!
It is going to be 23 degrees C today. It’s mid-Winter and that is batshit crazy. Mind you it’s about 10 degrees in Canberra atm but even that is a bit warm for Canberra at this time of year.
I have retired from my day job (Tuesday) and have come to spread my wings in the big city for a few days as a newly freed woman. Hah! (Mostly to meet people while I have the chance).
Interesting insight into the mind here. I used to think those two days I worked the day job were such an imposition. I worked hard and I was tired after. Now though my brain says…oh two days that’s nothing. You won’t get much work done now you have those two days! You could have kept working and earning $$$. I mean what the hell brain! Don’t be stupid and play around here.
Anyway, now I have to prove my own brain wrong.
I have brought Gentleman Magician with me to start the revision after beta reader feedback. That’s what you do after you launch a book, pick up the next one. The problem I have is that I have a soggy beginning in Gentleman Magician, not surprising as it’s a kind of prequel, a solid middle and a vague, cut off ending. Which means I have a bit of work to do. I did a bit of work on the train up yesterday but right now, obviously as I’m blogging, I’m a bit unfocussed.
I am going to eat lunch out so I am dreaming about Gozleme and whether there is any fresh stuff about…I can’t have any more tea because I have enough caffeine in me that I can’t sit still for five minutes. I will probably excavate my daughter’s cupboard for snacks soon and then complain about my weight. I am nothing if not consistent.
As mentioned, I launched the ebook of The Founders’ Legacy on Tuesday. I am currently planning a physical launch but that may be in early September because I am nicking off to Singapore for five weeks soon and appearing at the Canberra Geek Expo on 18 and 19 July. And I have to arrange for books to be delivered. I tried to book a launch just after Geek Expo before I fly out but the venue is unavailable…so…September. I shall keep you posted.
I am also working on an audio book. Cringe! I hate the sound of my own voice for starters. Also, weird things happen you know. Like one of the characters is called Kai and I have in two separate recordings of chapter one mispronounced the name Kai. And not noticed until I finished the recording for the chapter. The first time I call Kai Kal, which is a mix up with the main character Tal. I thought no problem I’ll just record that bit, snip the recording, delete the offending bit and insert the new bit. But for some very strange reason I am loud and sound very different in the redone recording. I delete the whole chapter and go back to the beginning. It’s all practice right?
The next time when I am editing I noticed I have called Kai “Kate”. Kate! There is no Kate. What the hell is my brain telling my mouth. This time I do a bit of research and can alter the inserted new bit which is loud etc and smooth it in. Not sure I’ll keep it but I did manage to do that using the Audacity envelope tool and manually manipulating the wave form.
Other interesting observations about recording an audio book, beside being exhausting, is stumbling over your own tongue. Yes, the tongue twisting words. There have been a few. One I edited out. The worn brown modular lounge… That does not work in spoken lingo so it changed to “Old brown modular lounge.” Self-congratulatory. Yeah that one. Gez man. Tongue gymnastics there. Preliminary…another twister.
When you record an audio book and you don’t have the stamina, experience and perspicacity, you get tired, your mouth stops working, your lips turn to jelly and your tongue becomes like a piece of disobedient rubber. Blah! Blah! Bleargh!
However, as The Founders’ Legacy uses single pronouns I think it will be more accessible as an audio book so I will perservere.
The only thing I have achieved is an audio book cover so I can’t back out now.
I am sorry I did not write this before when I had pre orders up. I had a sudden bereavement and everything went a bit pear-shaped.
My PhD novel is here.
I have blogged about this before so scroll back. However, I will say that I am currently working on the audio book, which I think it will make it more accessible. Reading a single non-gendered pronoun is hard enough (try writing it) but listening should be better. I shall let you know.
Also, a special introductory price of $2.99 au is in effect until 14 July, 2026 and $1.99 US
Here is the blurb
The Founders created them free and equal.
In the domed habitat of Frequil, sixteen-year-old Tal 455 is now an adult. Like every sihem—a genderless human engineered by the Founders—Tal has been raised to value harmony and the collective good, where every citizen has a place.
When Tal proposes an experiential history machine to explore Frequil’s origins, the ruling council reluctantly approves it under strict supervision. Paired with Gen 456, a certified genius, Tal begins uncovering fragments of the Founders’ world that were never meant to be seen.
Hidden among the archives are stories of men and women living in a society with different rules. Fascinated, Tal and Gen use their machine to experience a forbidden past—and begin questioning everything they have been taught about themselves.
Sometimes you just have to live with whatever. Sometimes you might feel you are in a vortex of shit.
On Monday, which was a very lovely day in Canberra, I went for a walk around the lake and then on to the Botanical Gardens with friends. Just near the end of my walk in the gardens, I did not see a step. And wow does landing on your knees hurt! I managed to hobble out there and put on a brave face. When I got home, I asked Matthew to clean the grazes with alcohol wipes. I might have screamed. However, they had to be cleaned. I managed dinner with friends being dropped by the door of the restaurant.
Some pictures from the walk.
I slept with my legs elevated because I expected swelling and the next morning I was not surprised to have jelly knees. I spent the day vegging in front of the TV, eating all the inappropriate food I could find. I contacted the office of orthopaedic surgeon who did my partial knee replacements and he requested an Xray. My view of the Xray is that it’s all okay bone wise, no breaks, the arthritis on the knee cap is worse that previously. I’m guessing it’s just soft tissue damage. The surgeon hasn’t called so I’m thinking there are no issues with my prosthesis either.
A picture of gumnuts!
Anyhow I can mostly walk okay. Occasionally the right knee gives and the right knee does not like leading the way upstairs. The swelling has come down somewhat.
In amongst all this are some family issues, some friends adversely affected by health news and I wonder if the stars are in the wrong quarter or something. The world is pretty shit too and all in all it is quite difficult to stay positive.
I moved out of my craft room on the weekend too. And it looks like I’m going to sell my floor loom. I’m not using it enough to justify the space it takes up. And I’m hoping I kept my craft makings accessible this time but with the knees I cannot assemble shelves and finish the tidy up. The test will come when I want to work on something. These days it is sewing that floats my boat. If you can believe it, I actually culled some fabric and a lot of yarn. It went to the local buy nothing group. I found things too that I had totally forgotten about.
As part of clearing the craft room, I finished the walking bonnet that I started in a workshop at the Regency weekend. It is made from violet dupion silk. I don’t have much in violet so I thought why not.
A little bit of writing has been achieved. Mostly the restructure of Tainted Lady. I have some beta reader feedback coming for Gentleman Magician that I hope won’t take long to address. All in all, I am a bit behind schedule.
I also need to organise a launch, virtual and real of, The Founders’ Legacy. So I must start with a blurb and that requires brain power.
I feel I’m in a time tunnel. Egads! It’s June already and I’m pondering what happened to May. Oh well.
Since my last post, I have sent The Founders’ Legacy off for a proofread. It’s due back later this month.
Gentleman Magician is waiting on some beta reader comments.
And I decided to publish my Regency Romance Tainted Lady, under my Dani Kristoff name as Dani’s books are more mainstream paranormal romance. I found a great cover. It features an older heroine and is a second chance romance. And being me there are feminist undertones.
I am currently restructuring Tainted Lady. I thought I had mostly restructured it but alas, I had not and I need to work through it carefully. It is only the beginning that I’ve chopped up, after feedback from a Romance Writers of Australia competition. Fab feedback btw. I also need to make a few tweaks to my hero. However, for some reason I keep getting stuck on chapter one. I mean you can rewrite a chapter one a gazillion times, you know.
In other news, I am vacating my craft room for my grandson. However, this is cathartic and important. I’ve built up a bit of a mess since I last moved back into my craft room so it is good to sort through things, find bits of patterns and work out what I want to keep handy and what can be safely stored. I have made it quite clear that everything needs to be accessible so I am labelling as well as sorting and tidying. This is a threefold problem as the garage needs to be sorted and that is long overdue. For where may I ask will the craft stuff go? I have a floor loom that needs to be moved and I may want to you know weave something. I am hoping for a garage that is tidy and accessible. I have been in there to look for a power tool and said I’m going to buy a new one as I can’t find the one we have. Yes, it is that bad. The major sorting was instigated by a collapsing ceiling in the garage and then roof repairs which has a ripple effect. The other element is rearranging the library, which is currently a dormitory, and working out where to put stuff. All very disruptive to one’s writing routine.
I am progressively going through my hard drive and will publish more things perhaps next year. It’s clean up time!
Next appearance is Newcastle Next Book Boyfriend Link here. Saturday 13 June, 2026 93.0 to 4.30
This book is coming along nicely. I have been tweaking the cover using Bookcoverzone. I’ve not done this before. I usually just say what’s on the cover but this site lets you tinker yourself. You would not believe how many iterations I have put the app through to get to this. No changes to the image, just the titling.
I think this is where I’m going to leave it.
I haven’t started on the blurb yet would you believe. That can be hard work but I’ve been side tracked by writing administration tasks. You may not have heard that the book aggregator Draft to Digital brought in a fee for low selling authors. This was mostly due to some shenanigans by nefarious players. They also had to limit how many titles you could upload. I don’t think I make the minimum and most of my Draft To Digital sales are with Barnes and Noble so as I have an account there, I figured I would delist all my books and relist on Barnes and Noble. And there is a lot of books and it’s not a quick job. So…I am getting there…
A bit about The Founders’ Legacy. I wrote this book as part of my PhD in Creative Writing, where I researched feminism in popular romance fiction. Now you might wonder why I wrote a future SF book featuring genderless humans. You see I started thinking about equality and how that would look in its purest form. I was thinking of unconscious bias and how that would be eliminated if you couldn’t tell if a person was a man or woman or something else by their names.
If you took it another step, by the way they looked so what if they looked the same, no gender, no traditional families, or how much money they earned if they all looked and dressed similarly and earned the same money or got the same food, shelter, leisure etc. Then I also thought about how you would maintain that….so a domed city, bio-dome thing with supplementary water and various power sources so this culture could perpetuate itself and add the social conditioning, and also enforcement of the rules and you have Frequil, where everyone is free and equal…
The Giver by Lois Lowry has been cited as a text with similar themes. A small community, traditional family groups changed, social conditioning and chemical conditioning and some weird stuff in there too. I can see the similarity in themes here. However, I had not heard of this book when I wrote The Founders’ Legacy, initially called Sihem.
My influences were Logan’s Run, the movie. The book is a tad different in the ages and things it uses, but yes a domed city and an post-apocalyptic outside.There are rules and when rules are broken things happen.
Another inspiration would be Star Trek Next Generation The Outcast episode, where they meet a planet full of same gender and one of them wants to express gender and be female and become Riker’s lover. Anyway, the strong theme in that was about difference, the intolerance of difference. This was more of a pro-Gay episode.
I use romance novels within this story as they inform Tal and Gen, my two main characters, about gender roles, some feminist issues and about the world the Founders came from.
A feature of the Founders’ Legacy is the use of non-gendered pronouns ‘si’, ‘sis’ and ‘sim’. The pronoun sihe is an honorific and sihem a collective noun, This can make the novel hard to read and my trial readers generally said that they substituted ‘he’ or ‘her’. I found that when I read Ancilliary Justice as the AI character could not differentiate between sexes so called them all she. I found my brain kept wanting to know if it was a man or a woman. It was sort of a weird affect. The Founders’ Legacy takes that a step further. The other realisation comes when you realise how gendered our language is and how the brain wants to slot people into categories.
The book blurs utopian and distopian themes and is, I think, a young adult, adult cross over. While there is romance in there it is more science fiction, I believe.
Given all that is happening in the world right, it is hard to deal with things. My doomscrolling is almost non-existent because I can’t bear it.
With my economics learning, I know things are just going to get worse in Australia as we deal with the Iran war fall out. Inflation is not anyone’s friend and coming so close after the pandemic and all those income support payments people got (that have to be paid back somehow) it’s a double punch. The Iran war situation is not over and we were already priming for this oil shock. We thought it might be a short one but alas…no. The Government’s budget is a tough one. I can feel the austerity vibes.
Forget tarrifs! They were hard, unpredicatable and so on. Forget the old world order. The rules have been tossed out.
I think wars, famine, disease outbreaks make one feel a bit hopeless and disempowered. There isn’t much one individual can do about any of it.
I try to think of ways to influence what is going on around me and ways I can help contribute to mine and others’ well being.
I walk in the neighbourhood a lot. It’s suburbia, there were are hills, trees, birds, magnificent sky. People walk their dogs, or just walk about. I figure if I want a nice neighbourhood, I should say ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’ and ‘Cute dog. Can I pat it?’ People usually say hi back. This might seem a small thing but it helps create a neighbourly, neighbourhood.
Also, getting out in a beautiful day lifts the spirits. How can you not be calmed by trees, and nature. It kind of fills me up. Today I went in a different direction. Up the hill into the nature reserve. I was taking a picture of the view when someone said ‘Morning!’ I hadn’t heard them approached and startled. Once I had got myself together I said Good morning back. He said ‘It’s a great view.’ Walking back toward home, there was a big group walking towards me, a men’s group maybe. We exchanged good mornings and it felt nice, you know.
I also started looking a view from say a water colourist perspective. Not that I am a watercolourist, but I do aspire to try one day. The photos below are some that I took.
Our street has a Signal chat group. Our neighbour next door dropped notes into people’s letter boxes and asked if people wanted in. Most of us did. It aslo incorporates the street behind as well. Great for organising things like Halloween for the kids and so on. It is a really nice group of people. I had Christmas drinks on our decks one year. Not everyone came but a few did and it was nice to put faces to names. I think this chat group has helped create a lovely neighbourhood. We can post about snakes, or kangaroos on the street. Sometimes neighbours say ‘I’ve put a box of lemons out. Help yourself.’ OR “Zuccinis going if you want them.” Anyhow, I think this is a positive thing. We even tell the street if we are going away and there are housesitters. Or if someone has a teenager to feed the cat etc.
My partner volunteers at the Food Co-Op and he really believes in their ethos. He picks up left over bread from a bakery and delivers it to the Co-Op and one day a week to our local community centre. The bread goes to people in need, rather than the tip.
Other things we can do to whether difficult periods is donate a can of food to the local food bank. We have one in the next suburb and we can also leave food at the Pool and Leisure centre. I drop books there to the community book swap thing as well.
Other friends I know do things like make scarves for homeless people or Ukraine. These were woven, but crochet is fine. A beanie with left over wool.
To help others doesn’t have to cost much money but it usually costs time. I am still working on where I want to put my effort in. I am currently working parttime but that is going to end soon.
I’ve done my share of committees in local associations-community housing, writing, writing centre.
I feel grateful to have been on this Earth for 66 years. It has not been easy but I am here now and like it or not I have to live through whatever gets thrown my way. I also recognise my priviledge. I have a roof over my head, food and clothing. I can indulge my craft pursuits.
So here are the photos I took this morning. I thought most would make a good water colour painting.
I took a wrong turn but thought this was an interesting composition.
I know nothing much about water colouring and I am not an artist. But I though the dark foreground and the layering of hills, cloud and sky was interesting.
Another view with contrasts.
I thought the road curving away was interesting. I don’t think the photo does it justtice.
Gentleman Magician is at 40,000 words. This is going to be a novella and I think I can finish it soon. I just have to write the ending scenes. I’m so excited. It’s taken me a bit longer to write than I planned but I have enjoyed not rushing. The Cry Havoc series continues. Steampunk and magic, with a side order of sandwiches. I’m really excited to be exploring the relationship between Edward Huntington, Ambrose Fulton and Jasper Heaton.
After I’ve done a bit of research, I’ll be starting Book Five, The Amethyst Way, featuring Jemima of course, and an adventure for Milly. Not sure I’ll write the prequel novella about Jemima’s father and mother but we shall see.
I’ve given up shopping my PhD novel, The Founders’ Legacy, to agents and publishers. The small Australian presses I had in mind are closed to subs. I have a feeling it’s a bit woke for the current climate in the USA and bad economics and global uncertainty don’t help either. Anyway, I did try. So the other day, I found a cover. Let me know what you think. It is SF YA/Adult cross over. I’ve got to work on the blurb. This is what I have so far:
Sixteen-year-old Tal is graduating from pod life and dreams of developing an experiential history machine to explore the past. When Tal’s research project is initially refused, that future seems impossible. After negotiation, approval is granted on two conditions: Tal must stay clear of the Founders’ lives and work alongside a young genius named Gen.
While mining data in the city’s systems, Tal uncovers the Founders’ arbitrary decisions that shaped Frequil’s genderless society. Fictional texts from the past introduce the idea of binary gender. Drawn by forbidden knowledge, Tal and Gen use their invention to experience what it was like to live as a pre-Frequil man and woman. As their bond deepens, the biological template that made Tal genderless begins to break down…
The Founders’ Legacy explores gender, love, and autonomy in a society that believes these concepts are no longer relevant.
In other news, I have eye surgery on Thursday for the fast growing cataract that is the result of my previous eye surgery, the vitrectomy ilast September. I’m half blind and typing this is fraught!
I have one upcoming appearance June 12, Newcastle Book Boyfriend. I’m heading to a Regency Weekend on the 14th and I’m madly sewing for it. Between writing and craft and bad posture I hurt.
I have finished listening to Well of Ascension. I was a bit teary at the end. Old Brandon did a slight of hand at the last minute and caught me by surprise. It was a great series. Thank you Brandon Sanderson.
With my partner, Matthew, we are listening to Dead Lies Dreaming by Charlie Stross. We have motored through the Laundry Files and this book is a bit different. It’s not first person point of view and it switches point of view sometimes a bit quickly in the audio book. I miss Bob though.
I’m reading a couple of books as well, currently on Emma Grey’s Pictures of You. And I have a queue of other books some started and some not.
I’m trying to keep a record of what I am reading and listening to, as during the year I lose track and end up wondering if I have read anything at all. So I’m trying to do less doom scrolling and more reading fiction. I must admit that hasn’t been easy the last few weeks, what with traveling and world events.
All this uncertainty and chaos upsets me and I’m sure other people too.
The Gentleman Magician draft is over 21,000 words. It’s going to be a novella so I hope to finish it this week. But tomorrow, is a sewing day. I’m helping a friend make a Regency bib fronted gown. I want to make one for me as well.
Here is a picture from the weekend at the Australian Romance Readers Romantic Rendezvous. It is quite appropriate. I’m trying not to laugh.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 