Curie Author Showcase (December 27, 2018)

As he often does, @terry93d brought us a brilliant review, this time of the debut novel of a fresh, new voice. It's "The Lies of Locke Lamora", the first of the Gentlemen Bastards sequence, by Scott Lynch. The review has the exact amount of personal contribution, leaving the readers with a definite urge to get the book and extract some conclusions of their own. As a sort of introduction, @terry93d says: "I wonder how much I would've enjoyed this had my reading habits not evolved from how they were closer to the beginning of the year, or even the middle of the year. I was, at the time, devouring fantasy novels effectively exclusively. To prevent burn-out, I declared a "sabbatical" from fantasy in favor of some nonfiction and some less traditional fantasies." Here’s an excerpt of @terry93d’s impressions on Scott Lynch’s novel.

(…) Every so often, you come across a book that you could reasonably describe as so very well put together in its design that any flaws it may have can be easily ignored. (…) Here, it is because of flashbacks, taking us from where we are in the story to Locke's training under Father Chains. Through this, Lynch links together the past and the present, interweaving it all together. It is also because of its pacing. This book just flies by and I mean that in the very best of ways. It is, admittedly, a little slow in the beginning, but this is okay. Wit carries you through and so does the prose: he creates a mental image in my mind, of the city of Camo rr, better than any other writer has been able to. Once the plot begins to pick up, though, it becomes difficult to put down. (…) — @terry93d

Another significant aspect of Lynch’s novel (that caught my attention on the book) is the great sense of humor shown by the author every other line, according to @terry93d.

@terry93d’s blog, as he has stated, contains “words written on the subjects of books, film, television, anime, video games, classical music, manga, soundtracks, typography, and occasional histories of one of those subjects. Really, whatever catches my eye and which I want to share with the world.”

What I do is compose music, writing in the whatever style peaks my fancy. But here, I am an assembler of words, crocheting a canvas to express my thoughts. I am something of a fan of media and history, and media's history. To narrow down the range, I enjoy televisual media. Film, television, anime, videogames, and their soundtracks. — @terry93d

To progressively shift to the Christmassy mood, the following post illustrates the performing of a ritual to welcome and celebrate the Winter Solstice. Belleamie, with beautiful photos and writing, walks us through the process. As she explains, there are no images of the ritual itself, since the moment was meant to be lived and not disturbed by cameras.

For the ritual, I've adapted a Waldorf Advent ritual that works beautifully and is full of richness and meaning for people of all (and no) faiths. The ritual itself is quite simple. People gather around the spiral in silence or singing quietly with unlit candles. We used beeswax candles in apples that had fallen from our tree. The spiral is made of evergreen boughs and has a lit candle in the center. One at a time, each person walks to the center flame in the spiral and lights their candle. They may place their lit apple candle anywhere along the path while walking back through the spiral. — @belleamie

Belleamie Broadsword resides in Seattle in the Cascadia bioregion of the Pacific NW. She is a permaculture enthusiast, home herbalist, wildcrafter and mycophile. She is in the process of converting her urban homestead to a food forest and looks forward to future blogging on these and related topics as well as connecting with steemit community that share similar passions.

Marking the wheel of the year in ritual helps our family find deep rhythm, meaning and connection. We could all feel the energy of the day building as we made our preparations throughout the day. Right as the sun was setting over the hill to our west, a robin flew into our west window and broke its neck. We were all distressed and sad as we brought his warm body into our home to determine what to do. This was 30 minutes before guests were to arrive and we were in the thick of final cooking and cleanup for hosting a large gathering in our home. My child and partner's eyes were welling with tears, trying to make sense of the tragedy. That's when I remembered some old folklore that it is King Robin who rules summer, and at the Solstice is defeated by King Wren, who rules the winter until they exchange places again at summer Solstice. We thanked the Robin for his sacrifice on our window, making room for King Wren to come and preside over the winter. We kept the robin warm until all the life was drained from his beautiful body, then gave him a place of honor in the Solstice Cave overlooking the spiral. We feel honored he chose to spend solstice with us and wish his spirit well in its next journey. — @belleamie

I think because of the deep symbolism and wisdom contained within the ceremony, it has a universal appeal to people of many faiths. I have co-created this ritual several times now among people of many different faiths with all positive feedback. — @belleamie

When you're thinking of spending quality time with your family and enjoying the Christmassy vibe at the same time, what ideas cross your mind? @danmaruschak came up with a brilliant one: to build a gingerbread house with his niece Anya. Through his post, we get to witness the process from scratch. Starting with some Victorian-style, very artistic sketches made by Anya, and then moving on to the templates and the baking, they practiced a bit with the recipe to perfect the designs and flavors before getting to the major project.

Overall it was a lot of time and effort, but the combination of Christmas spirit and the opportunity to build something cool with my niece made the whole thing feel worthwhile to me. We learned a lot in the process, things definitely would have gone more smoothly if I knew then what I know now (for example, trimming the gingerbread for the octagonal tower probably would have been just fine and made our lives easier). But I think the results are pretty good given that we were basically novices when we started. — @danmaruschak

I grew up in New Jersey where I was a classic nerd: smart, introverted, socially awkward, and a lover of fantasy and sci-fi (which is basically still true, except now I'm in Oregon and some of the things I've always loved are inexplicably popular now). I went to college at Rutgers University where I studied Computer Engineering. (…) While computers had fascinated me since childhood it had mostly been because they could enable you to play games. (…) Since I got out of the video game field I've been trying to pursue some different creative pursuits: I've written an unpublished novel and I've tried my hand at designing tabletop roleplaying games. In addition to reading, writing, geek culture, games, and game design I'm also interested in philosophy and psychology. — @danmaruschak