Fiction Friday: Three Days to Dead

Urban fantasy normally isn't my thing, but Kelly Meding's premise in Three Days to Dead - a woman who's devoted her adult life to protecting the city in which she lives from the beasties that  lurk in its shadows, awakes in a morgue in a body not her own, to learn that aside from her missing memories, she has three days before the body she inhabits dies and thus, three days to unravel the mystery of what put her in the morgue in the first place - intrigued me enough to pick it up and give it a read.

And boy was I glad I did! The plot moves along at a quick clip as Evangeline Stone searches for answers throughout Dreg City, encountering fantastical creatures that include goblins, vampires, gargoyles, gremlins, faeries and perhaps my favorite modern incarnation of a bridge troll.  She turns up more answers than she was initially seeking, which naturally moves the plot forward to its satisfying conclusion.  And there's just the right amount of romance and humor thrown into the mix as well.  One of the things that initially turned me off the genre, was the urban fantasy I had read appeared to be thinly veiled romance.  Not so, here.  There's not one forced scene in the book, and the chemistry between the characters seems genuine.



Three Days to Dead will appeal not just to readers of urban fantasy, but folks who enjoy adventure, romance and fantasy of any type.

Fiction Friday: The Company

K.J. Parker writes fantasy without the dwarves, elves, dragons and other fantastical creatures that normally populate such novels.  And she does it with style and panache.  Parker's prose is a true pleasure to read.  It's flows and shines like a stream glinting in the sunlight of an August afternoon in the Deep South.  Readers of fantasy are no doubt experienced at reading about great battles and of opposing soldiers in shiny armor wielding blunt and sharp weapons of war.  In The Company Parker explores what happens after the wars are over and there's no more fighting to be done.  She also demonstrates rather well that while you can take the soldier out of the war, taking the war out of the soldier is an entirely other thing.


After the aforementioned wars, Gen. Teuche Kunessin returns to his home village where he rounds up his military buddies, holding them to a promise made during the war to set up their own colony apart from the government, wars and the rest of society.  Kunessin has acquired an island as part of the spoils of war and he intends to set himself, his friends and their wives upon it to do just that.

Naturally, things aren't quite so easy as that.  Once the group manages to reach the island, all sorts of complications ensue resulting from the day to day labor involved in establishing a colony, character traits and nature.

If you haven't read any of Parker's other fiction, then The Company (Orbit Books, 2009)is a great place to start.  And if you have, then you should definitely add this novel to your bookcase if it isn't already there.

Writer's Block Wednesday

If you want to beat writer's block, your best tactic is to plan ahead.  Devote a specific amount of time each day to writing.  Once you've done that, devise a writing schedule.  Set goals.  Work on your novel Monday, Wednesday and Friday and maybe on short stories Tuesday and Thursday. Saturday you can work on your blog and maybe freestyle Sunday (write whatever strikes your fancy). Stick to the schedule you design and you should be fine. It also helps to have a target word count (think 1,000 words a day). 

If you have it set in your mind what you are going to write about before you even sit down in front of the computer and start typing, then you are likely to struggle less with the actual writing. 

Here is one writer's take on writer's block.  There are a couple s bombs, but no more than you might find in a PG-13 movie.

Fiction Friday

John Barnes' Directive 51 (ACE, 2010) is a futuristic apocalyptic novel that explores what might happen to the national government (and the rest of the world for that matter) when a major catastrophe strikes, and the president is no longer capable of continuing in his role as commander in chief.

The titular directive refers to one that actually exists today, providing "that in a case of unprecedented disaster a specific Federal official will become temporary dictator, with nearly unlimited power and a mission to restore Constitutional government as quickly as possible."

Barnes explores this in Directive 51, but does not allow the politics to bog down the rest of the book.  The novel is filled with acts of terror, dramatic tension, survivalism and even romance.  The characters, even those secondary to the plot, experience real change throughout the course of the novel. 

Called "the thinking person's techno-thriller," by S.M. Stirling, I'd recommend this to any reader of science fiction.