A Thanksgiving Historical Tale

 Coming in November...

The Gift of the Songbird

coming soon from Devine Destinies Books
https://www.devinedestinies.com/978-1-4874-2753-5-the-gift-of-the-songbird/

Hannah Cummings has big plans for her future. An invitation to sing at the mansion of the dashing Elisha Spielman on Thanksgiving Day promises to launch her music career and help her raise funds to receive further vocal training. It’s a most fortuitous invitation, and Hannah is grateful and excited to accept. However, one man seems to stand in her way.

Daniel March won’t have it. Hannah has always sung for their village’s Thanksgiving festival to support the orphanage, and this year should be no different.

Friends since long before the terrible war separated them, Hannah feels there is more to Daniel’s determination to change her mind than simply his need to get his own way.

 Can a songbird help them count their blessings and come to see each other in a different light?

Book Review: A Friend of Mr. Lincoln

A Friend of Mr. Lincoln by Stephen Harrigan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine becoming a close personal associate of a world famous, almost god-like, historical personality. This is the intriguing premise of Stephen Harrigan's A Friend of Mr. Lincoln.

A fictional character, Micajah "Cage" Weatherby, makes the acquaintance of a young and ambitious Illinois assemblyman, Abraham Lincoln. Cage, Lincoln and a group of other Springfield young men share a passion for poetry and discussing the important topics of the day--the Alamo, then the Annexation of Texas; the need for infrastructure improvement such as canals and railroads in the state and how to pay for them, and sometimes even the evils of slavery. Cage, as a published poet with abolitionist leanings, doesn't understand his friend's skirting the issue. He sees Lincoln as two-faced, trying too hard to please everyone so he doesn't risk losing his office or pulling the Whig party down. Cage feels Lincoln needs to take a stand on slavery, and he finds himself both surprised and disappointed when Lincoln helps free a captured run-away slave woman in court, yet he also goes on to represent a Kentuckian who insists his Black servants remain slaves and return with him after he manages his land in the free state of Illinois.

Perhaps what causes the most heated conflict between the two men is their respective love lives. Lincoln's heart seems inconsistent to Cage. After losing the love of his life early on, Ann Rutherford, Lincoln doesn't seem able to settle with any of the ladies of Springfield society who want to attach themselves to the up-and-coming lawyer/politician. One in particular, Mary Todd, seems determined to win Lincoln over. Cage and Lincoln's other friends see Mary as a danger to the sanity of their manic-depressive comrade when Lincoln finds himself deeply unhappy after becoming "engaged to be engaged" to the ambitious woman. After rousing Lincoln from a near death depression over the misunderstanding, Cage makes an enemy of Miss Todd (and become off limits to Lincoln, once married to Mary). Cage's own love life falls apart when his secret lover, Ellie, moves her dress shop to Chicago after an anonymous letter in the newspaper exposes their affair. Cage and Lincoln drift apart, but the mutual admiration for the talent and humanity in each other doesn't, even as the years pass and the onset of Civil War brings both men to the same conclusion, slavery must end.

A Friend of Mr. Lincoln evokes a strong sense of being a part of history, of breathing the same air of great men during their formative years. Harrigan does an excellent job of building believable and well-rounded characters, both real and fictional. The settings and details bring the 1830s through1840s in Springfield, Illinois alive, giving modern readers insights into the customs, culture and politics of the time and place. It is a novel sure to please both history and Lincoln biography lovers alike.


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The Story That Gives (More on New Doctor Who)

The Story That Gives (More on New Doctor Who)  

by Cynthianna

***Spoiler Alert!***

                                                                  

At last! Finally, fans are treated to a story this season which actually dares to explore the complexity of character within a science fiction format. Well done screenplay author Catherine Tregenna and director Ed Bazalgette! 

With the set-up story to The Woman Who Lived being a bit on the uneven side, our hopes for the sequel showing what became of the young Viking girl, Ashildr, weren’t all that great. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find a tale about the meaning of immortality and how tedious life must be for a human being forced to live one day at a time for over 800 years while everyone and everything around her fades away. 

While the Doctor represents a long-lived (but probably not immortal) character who is able to bounce about space and time at will, “Me” (as Ashildr renames herself) is forced to live one day at a time and limited by primitive technology to staying put in medieval times and then finally in Cromwell’s England of the 1650s when she encounters the Doctor again. Is it any wonder she’s taken to being a highwayman for the cheap thrills to lighten her otherwise dreary existence?

But the story doesn’t stop simply there at Me’s superficial existence as a robber—no, it actually treats the viewers as thinking individuals and gives us more. Much more. The Doctor scans her journals of 800 years and learns just how much the Viking woman has suffered as she’s loved and lost and loved and lost over and over again. We understand how painful it is for her to lose her children to the plague, as she is able to survive it while her family about her dies a horrible death. This is what good science fiction is—it’s about showing character and suffering, wonder and hope. It’s not just about piling on the special effects or the monster costumes or dumping sometimes puerile, sometimes nasty non sequiturs into the script just for laughs. Science fiction is at its best when it’s used to demonstrate what it means to be human, even when the characters aren’t quite “human” themselves.

There are a few weaknesses in the production, but the strength of the acting and story itself more than offset them, as was often the case in the classic series. After all, how many fire-breathing “lions” have you ever seen? (We wondered why the alien couldn’t have been a fire-breathing dragon-like humanoid, instead of a Beauty and the Beast clone.) How can a petite woman sound like a baritone highwayman without access to more advanced technology to alter her voice? And, if Ashildr/Me has an alien chip that could have made at least one of her lovers or her children immortal, why hasn’t she used it before now? (Is it because she sees immortality as a curse but can't bring herself to destroy herself?) Stronger reasoning here would have been appreciated and possibly given us some more insight into the immortal woman’s character and motivations. 

Still, overall, the costuming and sets are well done and give the viewer a great feel for mid-17th century England. The acting by Peter Capaldi and Maisie Williams is superb. We never doubt Me’s inner torment for a second or the Doctor’s growing concern that perhaps he’s done the wrong thing by helping this young woman live as an immortal. In fact, she makes it obvious later that “friends” can sometime be more dangerous than enemies. 

As a “Clara light” episode, The Woman Who Lived gives the audience some hope that perhaps better things are yet to come for Capaldi’s Doctor, that perhaps we won’t have to wait 800 years for another decent episode in which he can shine.

What do you think? Please leave your comments below. And check out my reviews of earlier episodes of this season of Doctor Who:

The Girl Who Died  
Before the Flood

Under the Lake

The Witch's Familiar

The Magician's Apprentice

Classic Who on Retro TV

The Story That Tried (on New Doctor Who)

The Story That Tried

by Cynthianna

***Spoiler Alert!***

Hey, Vikings! It's been fifty years since we last seen them on Doctor Who, so Jamie Mathieson's script idea was a welcome breath of fresh air we thought. We loved his last season's scripts for Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline, both which are possibly the best written episodes in several years. Then we caught the co-writer's name--Steven Moffat, the show's producer who seemingly feels compelled to write or re-write every episode. Oh, well... maybe Jamie's magic will outshine any alterations Mr. Moffat makes to the story?

When people write together as a professional writing team, the reader/viewer usually can't tell where one author starts writing and then stops and his or her partner begins writing. (For instance, my husband and I just recently sold a jointly-authored Y.A. sci-fi novel series--more news to come!) Alas, there were several things that jumped off the screen in The Girl Who Died that just didn't seem to mesh as well with the overall writing-style. I suppose these rough bits were Moffat's additions? The first thing that really jarred was the title itself. Like last week's introductory scene, where the Doctor explains the entire story premise upfront, the title sort of gave away the "big secret" that a girl was going to die. Since it probably wasn't going to be the companion character, that left Ashildr, the Viking girl who helps the Doctor and Clara. Talk about killing all the mystery and tension!

The Vikings had a lovely village set, and it was great to see the Doctor materialize in another place rather than contemporary London or Wales again. Since the Vikings ruled an area from North America to Russia and south to Turkey, the village could have been anywhere within their realm. However, one thing jumped out that shouldn't have been there: the horns on the helmets. 

According to my daughter, who attended graduate school in archaeology at the University of Southern Denmark and is a professional Viking re-enactor in Europe, Vikings warriors never wore helmets with those big longhorns on the top. That's a fallacy perpetually kept alive by Bugs Bunny's famous What's Opera, Doc? and Asterix and Obelix comic strips. Take it from me, they just didn't, and my daughter can provide the historic proof to back it up. Also, the modern belt buckle I spotted on Ashildr's costume (why was she wearing pants and not skirts like Viking women usually did?) wasn't found in that time period, either. Vikings used beautifully forged decorative pins to hold their clothes together in the places that weren't tied or sewn together. One would hope the BBC costume department had enough of a budget to call an expert in Viking clothing to double-check these things, but perhaps Mr. Moffat thought such anachronisms funny?

The "Mire" villains reminded us of Sontarans or the Judoon from previous seasons. "Odin" looked like the pirate captain in the Douglas Adams' script The Pirate Planet in the Key to Time series during the Tom Baker years, too. The Doctor's odd nasty remark that "God never makes an appearance" (like he does in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) to explain the appearance of the aliens to the Viking villagers sounded more like an atheist's complaint than something the character of the Doctor would say, as he generally respects other cultures. Once again, it sounded like an addition made by another writer with an ax to grind--Mr. Moffat, by chance?

Peter Capaldi seemed to be channeling bits of Tom Baker--along with Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee--in his performance. His Troughton-like plaid trousers looked a bit out of place with his "'90s grunge band look" hoodie and t-shirt under the jacket. Last year's more sophisticated style of dressing seemed to suit him better than the uber-casual teenage boy look he's sporting this season. 

The Doctor's more warmhearted approach (he actually hugs Clara without prompting) is a nice touch this time out, but his unusual decision to re-animate "the girl who died" seemed completely out of character for him. The Doctor usually insists that the time line shouldn't be altered for anyone and that death is final.  (If it isn't, why has he not gone back to save his companion Adric who died during his fifth incarnation?) One suspects neither the girl's death nor her resurrection was included in the original story idea Mr. Mathieson pitched, and that it was added to give a guest appearance slot to Maisie Williams for two episodes as a ratings gimmick. 

The "reason" for the Doctor changing his mind about bringing her back to life came across as an weak attempt to appease fans.  Some must be dying to know why the Doctor looks very much like the Roman father from the 2008 Fires of Pompeii episode, but it seemed contrived. After all, Colin Baker appeared in the fifth Doctor episode Arc of Infinity as Maxil, a Gallifreyan guard, and we were never given an explanation for why the sixth Doctor had Maxil's face, and the audience handled it just fine. Yet another example of an alteration made to Mathieson's original script?

We're given hints that poor Ashildr is now immortal, and she's going to hate it and go insane since she will outlive all her loved ones. It makes sense, but then again, Captain Jack Harkness is also an immortal Doctor Who character who hasn't gone insane, and he's outlived everyone and died horribly numerous times to boot. (He just keeps coming back no matter how many little pieces he's pulverized into, poor man!) Why is Ashildr different? And does this mean that Jack has a chance to come back on the show to help a fellow immortal cope with the meaning of her existence? Captain Jack fans are anxious to know!

Over all, The Girl Who Died seemed like one long set-up for its second part/sequel next week. If some of the "additions" to the script had been left out, and the story focused more on the Doctor and the other characters, perhaps it would have been stronger. So far this season's writing hasn't lived up to the quality of  last season's non-Moffat written episodes--not including the dreadful Moon/Dragon's Egg "worse episode ever" as it's been called. (We suspected it had been written by Moffat as well.) If Jamie Mathieson is allowed to write for Doctor Who without a "co-writer" tampering with his story ideas, perhaps the writing will improve. 

Or not. Let's hope they keep trying.

What do you think? Please leave your comments below. And check out my reviews of earlier episodes of this season of Doctor Who:

Before the Flood

Under the Lake

The Witch's Familiar

The Magician's Apprentice

Classic Who on Retro TV

Book Review: Three Hands in the Fountain

Three Hands in the Fountain by Lindsey Davis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Falco and his good friend Petro find a decaying hand in the local fountain and stumble into solving a good ol' fashioned mystery. Three Hands in the Fountain is a return to what I like best in the Falco series--street characters and action set in the city of Rome with a misogynistic serial killer on the loose who has to be found before he kills again. Falco discovering bits of women's bodies in the aqueducts and trying to work out the psyche of the killer gives the story a rather modern flair. About the only thing that slow the story's pacing are long descriptions of the Roman water supply system itself. (Agreed it was quite an achievement, but can we stick with the characters and their emotions a bit longer, please? I'm not a civil engineer!) Helena Justina makes only token appearances and one hopes her role increases in later stories as their child grows up. Still, Three Hands in the Fountain is an enjoyable read for fans of the series.

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Book Review: Dragon's Child

The King Arthur Trilogy Book One: Dragon's Child by M. K. Hume
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'll only touch on a few things for this review, but I have to say that overall I wasn't that impressed with the writing style. The "head-hopping" (or constant point-of-view switching) drove me up a wall. Here I am as a published author thinking how my editors would have told me to do a complete rewrite if I head-hopped as much as Ms. Hume does in this book. The end result of using this "omniscient narrator" (head-hopping) creates an emotional distance from the characters, especially the main character of Artorex. Yes, his name is a Roman name and not "Arthur" that you'd might think considering the long title of the book/trilogy. I'm okay that Ms. Hume wants to make Artorex a Celt brought up by a Roman family, although by 600 AD how many pure bred "Romans" are left in Britain, really? (And why are Celts seen to be "deficient" in their warrior ways that only a Roman could do the job right?) It's the emotional distance that the reader feels that sinks the story, because we never stay in any one character's POV for very long--I'm talking about head-hopping every other paragraph in some scenes. Without staying in one POV and feeling a deep connection to the young and struggling Artorex, you really don't get a feel for him as a character or even care for what happens to him. What makes this any different than reading a non-fiction article on the legend of Arthur/Artorex? One spoiler--there is no "magic" or fantasy elements in this story, so some readers who enjoy Arthurian legend will be disappointed. But if you like a story that's simply told to you about a young Celtic boy raised in a Roman manner to become the High King of the Britons, and you don't mind head-hopping, then this is the book for you.

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Book Review: Time to Depart

Time to Depart by Lindsey Davis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time to Depart brings Roman sleuth Marcus Didius Falco alive once again for me after a rather slow ride in the last book in the series. Returned to his home town of the seven hills, political corruption, crime, theft, murder, and old friends and family members abound in this story. Falco is hired on to help solve the mystery of who is behind the robbery of an entire marketplace worth of goods after his friend in the vigils, Petro, sends a noted gangster up the river (or rather, gets the crime boss exiled from Roman territory). If Pius isn't the criminal mastermind, who is? Lalage, the brothel keeper, isn't talking, and neither is Pius's bitter wife or vacuous daughter. Add in the domestic troubles of being asked to officiate as a priest at his landlord's wedding (ugh!), discovering a baby thrown in a skip, "adopting" a mutt that follows him about, trying to find his missing niece, and learning that he's about to become a father with his lover Helena Justina, and Falco has more than his hands full. Time to Depart is fast paced and full of action, suspense and plenty of characters to keep readers entertained. Well done!

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Book Review: Last Act in Palmyra

Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's been a few years since I read a Falco mystery by Lindsey Davis so when I finally got a hold of Last Act in Palmyra, I was happy to delve into the world of ancient Rome once again. Falco is the same sleuth as he ever was--resourceful, trustworthy, worldly, cynical, and madly in love with a senator's daughter, Helena Justina. The setting in the cities of the Decapolis is interesting, and the details of everyday life in the first century Roman world are fascinating, as Davis is terrific with bringing such historical things to life. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for all the characters. About the only thing that spoiled this installment in the series is the tediousness of the storyline and how the various stock characters of the traveling theatre troupe in which Falco and Helena travel seemed to blur together in your mind. The story's pacing is slow compared with earlier capers, and I wasn't quite as excited to keep turning pages since I'd figured out who had committed the murder long before Falco showed signs that he even had a clue. I'm not a big mystery reader, so perhaps this wouldn't be a problem for most, but I missed the political intrigue and blood-and-guts action of the earlier books. Still, if you need a Falco fix, Last Act in Palmyra is sure to please.

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Book Review: Master and God

Master and God by Lindsey Davis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There's a reason why I don't put any author's books on an "automatically buy" list. Even if I love their earlier books, I don't necessarily believe I will love their later works. Such is the case (unfortunately) for Master and God. Having enjoyed Davis' Falco detective series, I thought I'd give this story a try--and trying it was. 

In the Falco series the Roman history, culture and setting are seamlessly intertwined with fascinating and sympathetic characters, but the same can't be said of this book. The first part is a head-hopping nightmare. The point of view hops from omniscient to one character to the next (even within a paragraph). Then there's a head hop to a fly on the wall. Really! Having to edit and fix head-hopping problems in my own and others' manuscripts (Yes, I'm an evil editor), I don't care to read it in a professionally published book.

 The second part of the story is a bit less head-hoppy, and the lovers Flavia Lucilla and Gaius Vinius are worth cheering for, but long "telling/info dumping" passages slow up the love story and cause frustration for both the lovers and the reader alike. It seems as if Davis couldn't figure out if she wanted to write a straight history of the reign of Domitian or a love story set in Rome. I wish she would have stuck with the second choice and edited the head-hopping and info dumping. 

If readers could get a feel for Rome in the Falco series without chapter upon chapter of info dumping, surely Lucilla and Vinius' love story could have been written likewise. But if you enjoy Roman history and don't mind the romantic interruptions and head-hopping, Master and God might appeal to you.

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Book Review: Abraham Lincoln-Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Should anyone mess with a historical personage to the point of creating a "history" that never happened? Do we owe our idols some loyalty in keeping their reputations clean and their hands free from blood? Seth Grahame-Smith does a very good job of researching Lincoln's formative years growing up in Indiana and his early years in Illinois politics. He creates a credible world in which vampires might have lived and gives plausible situations in which Lincoln might have interacted with bloodsuckers. The one point where the whole conceit falls down, I believe, is with the title character. Do most Americans see our beloved Lincoln as a blood-thirsty killer or as the savior of the republic? Possibly creating an original character living in the time period of the Civil War fighting off the evil vampires in league with southern slave owners would have worked just as well without the unpleasant aftertaste of the betrayal of a cultural icon... Still, it is a very well written book, with the caveat that it's not possibly to everyone's tastes.

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A book trailer I helped to make...

Check out this cool book trailer I helped create this week. I took a lot of the photos that were used as a basis for the "sketches" and located a few of the others. The music from Incompetech.com is really stirring, too, don't you think?

Better yet, The Hetzenberg Chronicles: Volume 1, is now on sale until the end of the year. It's available at Amazon and via the publisher, Smiling Assassin Productions, too. The author always gets more royalties if you buy directly through the publisher, you know. Remember that whenever you shop at Amazon. ;-)

More videos should be on their way soon and can be found at our You Tube "Smiling Assassin Presents" Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/cynthianna63?feature=mhsn

Enjoy!

Writers Don't Get an Even Break

I'm re-printing a blog post here written by my husband, A J Matthews. It demonstrates the uphill climb (and constant slogging) we writers take as we try to make a living (or at least sell a few copies of our books).

A Disappointing Review...

Somewhere in the middle of the night my name must have changed. This from the book review of The Hetzenberg Chronicles, vol. 1, as printed in issue 23 of Battlegames magazine.

"...Mr Mitchell clearly had enormous fun writing this book and his enthusiasm for his characters is obvious, but alas, not contagious. The lack of either any wargames background or historical verisimilitude make it hard to think of anyone to whom I could honestly recommend this book." --John Preece

Hello? Excuse me? Mr. Mitchell? Who he?

A writing friend, an award-winning book reviewer for print and online publications, and who has been quoted in Publisher's Review on more than one occasion, upon reading this review states:

It appears that the editor of this publication doesn't proof his book reviewers' articles--as seen by the reviewer calling you by a different last name. What is more troubling, is it is obvious that the "reviewer" didn't read your book at all or at least not in its entirety. He seems to be copying details from the blurb on the back cover and possibly picked up something from your blog, but he doesn't authoratively discuss the plot, the characterizations or the over-all tone of the piece. (He does seem to have an ax to grind against "historical romance" or novels in general. Where did he come up with this idea your book is a romance anyhow? I'd classify it as "historical fiction" since Imaginations are a "fictional" concept as you explained it to me.) I find this "review" very sloppy journalism, and paints all of us who write professional book reviews as incompetents. I mean, how can you trust this person's opinion (and by extension, the magazine's) on anything if they can't 1) bother to proofread articles for inaccuracies before publication, and 2) they don't insist on their "reviewers" reading the entire book before reviewing it. Very disappointing on the whole.

So what would you do in my place? As the quote above says, it's very disappointing. I had hoped to receive an honest review from someone who would see this as a novel and not a dedicated wargames publication full of rules, background data etc. How do you feel if you've read the review -- do you think this reviewer has 1) read the book 2) has an axe to grind against novels in general and romance in particular (and why did he assume the book is an historical romance? Anyone who has read the book would know it isn't). 3) I can understand publisher Henry Hyde had some personal troubles to deal with recently, but why did Battlegames magazine let this pass un-copyedited?

I am rather hurt by this, and don't know if I should pursue the matters outlined above with Battlegames or not. At the moment I'm working on the next volume of The Hetzenberg Chronicles - The Heat of Battle - but such a "review" from a respected magazine doesn't make it easy to continue. Any help or advice you fans of the Hetzenberg Chronicles can give will be appreciated.

Thanks for reading and for your support,

A J Matthews - not Mitchell!


If you feel inspired, give A J a comment at his "Hetzenberg Chronicles" blog and let him know that all is not lost. Thanks.