Another year gone by. As I looked at my annual blog post from 2022, I could not help but feel a strange sense of deja vu at what I wrote two years ago:
After three years and three pandemics we tighten our global resolve to beat the virus(es), curb inflation, stop global warming, and end a senseless attempt by oligarchs to annihilate an entire county and kill the millions of people who live there.
Two years later and we are still scheduling our vaccines, still fighting inflation and global warming; and have now double-downed on electing our very own home-grown oligarchy. We have been promised mass deportations, annexation of Canada and Greenland and so much more mayhem, starting tomorrow. Today I express my dismay and embarrassment of the newly-elected leadership of my country.
The election fervor that dominated our national consciousness this year also influenced my reading. I chose to read mostly non-fiction this year. Everything from the architectures of aqueducts to political histories and even several biographies this year. Of particular note was and Autobiography by the Monty Pythons themselves, which I found fascinating and a bio of Winston Churchill that had me marveling at the the man’s accomplishments, but yawning my way through the writer’s words.
That said, the notable fiction this year was slim pickings for me, but the stuff I enjoyed the heck out of this year were fantastic adventures. Total escape!
Best book by a favorite author was the third volume in John Gwynne’s Bloodsworn Trilogy, The Fury of the Gods. I was champing at the bit to get my hands on this hefty tome. I even glutted myself rereading the first two books in the series first: The Shadow of the Gods and The Hunger of the Gods; the whole series is a winner. This is viking mythology at it’s freshest and very best. Wonderful characters, engrossing world and myth building, impossible choices and a ton of action. I cannot recommend this series enough.
Best new-to-me author was Wesley Chu’s meaty The Art of Prophecy, recommended by a writer friend of mine. The story is fantastic in every way and completely unexpected. All of the rave reviews are right on target. Action galore! This adventure junkie can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
And thus comes the lesson: Common elements in both these novels are non-traditional characters, which (to me) really adds to the novelty of experience for the reader. If you are looking for adventure, you need to break new ground; bring a new world to life; introduce new characters with different ideas about what is important and give them impossible choices and unexpected results. Both these authors know how to put their characters through the wringer, and as readers we root for the underdog and want to see them endure against impossible odds and triumph. As writers, we all strive for this (I hope). I’ve said it before: we can’t keep writing the same story.
Stories like these give all of us hope that we too can endure.
As we must.
Let me make this clear: my dog’s name is Merlin. He is an Australian Shepherd and I love him dearly. Unreservedly. We’ve lived together for 5 years, and we get along great. No arguments.
Yesterday, I passed them in my car while driving home. I waved and remember thinking that the woman’s dog was undoubtedly the sweetest Border Collie I have ever met. I even thought about telling the woman so. I mean, what if she couldn’t keep the dog any more for some reason? I would take that dog in a skinny minute. And then I thought about Merlin; I don’t think he would want to share my affections. I felt a twinge of guilt.
We had plenty of warning for this monster storm, but that doesn’t make it any less “chilling”. Oregon and much of the Pacific Northwest is hunkered down at home (as we expect to do this time of year) just waiting on/enduring the big blast of frigid air that has come thundering down from the north. Temps tumbled from the upper 30s (degrees Fahrenheit)) at noon yesterday to about 20 in less than 3 hours. Cold, but dry; too dry for snow. The +45mph winds kicked up around 10pm last night (as Merlin and I went for our last walk of the day), and even though I was wearing two parkas, it cut right through all that down. Eye-watering cold. This morning, the thermometer on my balcony (rimmed by pink lights) registered at 20 degrees (with wind chill, we have a ‘feels like’ temperature of 0 degrees (that’s -17 Celsius for my friends in Australia and the UK)), and that is the expected high temperature for today. 
What little snow we’ve seen thus far is just powdered sugar, whipped up by the winds. It’s too cold and dry to be worrisome, but sometime later today, the bitter winds and sub-freezing temps will collide with an atmospheric river of rain driving up from the south and sit right over the Portland area for a couple days. Actually, based on the weather warnings, the heart of the ‘weather event’ is expected to be right over me and several of my writer-peep friends here in Beaverton. I’m keeping an eye on the bird bath and hummingbird feeder, and thawing out both every hour for the birds. I’m also keeping the porch and deck lights on so the birds have a somewhat warmer place to seek shelter fro the wind and cold. Not worried about snow or rain; it’s the ice that will keep me & the dog inside. It’s not a sure thing, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
A few years ago, I gave up the madness of the Christmas season (when people celebrate Chris) for a quieter, nontheistic celebration of the first day of Winter, and the return of the light. I no longer have to face the herds of desperate migrating travelers as we all attempt to reach the lands of our clans. Instead, I spend the ‘me’ day working on my goals and deliverables for the coming year and updating/honing my 5-year strategic plan. I ponder things and think thoughts. 
The past three years have been tough on all of us. The pandemic, the insurrection on January 6th, the horror of mass shootings and senseless murders at the hands of police officers, and an incomprehensible war in Ukraine represented but a few of the headlines in the global news. Add to that our uniquely individual silent traumas, and I think the word tough might actually be an understatement. But wait, this blog post is not going to be about wallowing in negativity. This is a 
It all started a couple of months ago with Amazon Prime. I got a recommendation (as we do) based on my shopping history (which, best as I could tell, was prompted by recent purchases of Ray LaMontaigne’s Trouble and Ouroboros CDs as well as a new The HU, 
With a few exceptions (Robin Williams, Steve Martin) I don’t normally enjoy stand-up comedians; they mostly seem angry and shouty to me. But I watched the 
After this glutting myself on laughter and inspiration, I also reread what I consider to be the best book on writing ever written: 
Another year gone by.
In that vein, I changed up my reading genres this year. Thanks to Roku, I enjoyed the televised milieus of Michael Connelly’s LAPD Detective Harry Bosch (on Bosch) and Ann Cleeve’s DCI Jimmy Perez (Shetland). Connelly’s books already take up a good portion of real estate in my bookshelves, but I hadn’t discovered Cleeve’s work.
After reading a dozen or more of her novels, I can say her her Jimmy Perez series, starting with Raven Black was my FAVORITE READ BY NEW-TO-ME AUTHOR this year. While I think the television series for both authors is better (in a different way) than the books, the Shetland series doesn’t capture the island culture and politics of the series quite like the books do, and Connelly’s Bosch series has better characterizations/relationships in secondary characters and builds a stronger sense of immediate danger better than the novels. Honorable mention goes to N. K. Jemison’s The Fifth Season, which (to me) wasn’t exactly enjoyable as much as admirable.
FAVORITE READ BY FAVORITE AUTHOR: Hands down, Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series, particularly the third book, The Golden Enclaves was the best ending to a series I’ve ever read (a place previously held in my heart by Robin Hobb’s Blood of Dragons). Having just finished rereading all about Hogwarts, I was wary that this was just another magic school trope, but it is/isn’t in the most acerbic/stunning way. In fact, Novik’s three-volume Scholomance series got better with each book, and I sobbed (for lack of a better word) with both joy and horror the entire last third of the book, an emotion I have never experienced before. Utter cruelty and brutality in a single thought. The pinnacle of heroism in a single word. Novik’s Temeraire series made her an auto-buy author for me, but this one is just…Wow.
With it, a ‘storm in a generation’ has begun a thorough tour of most of North America, just to remind us all that in the timeline of eternity, the Ice Age was mere moments ago. Oregon isn’t known for harsh winters, but it was 18 degrees this morning, with sustained winds of 40mph.
Be well. Be warm. Dream of the sun to come.
