Slow, Slow, Slow, Late
So, I skipped a month, but let me tell you - WHAT a month that was. I’d just begun adjusting to having to suddenly be back in the office (after nearly 5 years straight of telework), when it finally happened.
After a good, long run COVID caught up with me.
Would NOT recommend. I had to take 10 days off work, and the story I was already behind deadline on. . . well, I had another embarrassing email to send. I’ve since gotten better (several weeks out, I recognize that even when I wasn’t testing positive, I was by no means back to 100%). I’ve also managed to hammer out a draft of what’s supposed to be a speculative detective story, though it came out more of a noir.
Or, at least I think it is. I’m not a big mystery reader, so I felt like I was flailing. Possibly not, but that’s something for my critique partners to let me know. And for all that it might be a noir, it’s possibly one of the more light-hearted things I’ve written in a while.
On the Workfront
It’s been a month or more since the Return to Office mandate was enacted, and I’m still adjusting to its impact on secondary pursuits (like writing, reading, podcasting, and so on). As of this writing, Judge Ilston, of the Northern District of California, issued a preliminary injunction against conducting any more RIFs (Reductions In Force), which may also include drastic reorganizations at the State Department (separate case, but one where Judge Ilston seems to view it as covered by her earlier ruling and has set a hearing for June 13, 2025).
So, once again, we’re in “we’ll see” territory.
In the day-to-day, my co-workers and I have had to manage much more work. Before all this, our branch had 33 people, including a handful of contractors. Thirteen people have since left, taking whichever of the DRP (Deferred Resignation Program) options applied to them. Nearly half of our branch has been cut. Pruned, one might say, but that implies it may grow again - and that’s not what this administration wants.
I guess we’ll see.
In the meantime, my wife and I have adopted the mantra, “anything that gets us to one more paycheck. . .”
One More Thing…
I’ve been on a bit of a reading kick, and finished all of Tad Williams’ fantasy epic, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (comprised of The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower) recently. Though I’d already been thinking of revisiting them, I was also re-reading them for a forthcoming appearance on The Ancillary Review of Books’ podcast, A Meal of Thorns (more news when its closer to release).
I may have more to write about what seemed for a time to be what I’ve taken to calling B. Daltoncore Fantasy Epics - and how often these books fit a certain mold. Fantasy that was in dialogue in one way or another with Tolkien, which more often than not was derivative in ways that merely aped Lord of the Rings without having much new to add (looking at you, Dennis L. McKiernan and your Iron Tower trilogy). Thankfully, Williams isn’t attempting to do that, instead coming at the tradition sideways. Sure, Osten Ard is a fantastical Europe seen at an odd angle, complete with its own Elf analogue in the Sithi (singular: Sitha). Instead of the stately and sorrowful creatures voluntarily leaving Middle Earth, the Sithi have been driven out by war and human colonization of their lands. Williams, however, throws us a curve because we later find that the Sithi themselves are colonizers themselves, and carry the memory of their oppressions as a secret shame. I could go on, but all I’ll say for now is: if you liked A Song of Ice and Fire, these books were a direct influence.
I’m now very close to finishing Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora. It’s been quite a ride, and I think it might be one of my favorites of his. Part of it is absolutely the development of Ship throughout the book, and their preoccupation with how to order data/information into a narrative. It’s also incredibly funny in parts - which is good, because holy shit is the story devastating and sad. KSR was picking a fight with the sub-genre of generation ships in science fiction, dramatizing all the “hard problems” and trade-offs needed to even attempt interstellar colonization. I remember a lot of people being very angry at that book. Me, I tend to agree that we should accept that maybe - just maybe - there is no Planet B, and we should take care of this one.
In Podside news, we just released an episode on the 1984 rock-n-roll fable Streets of Fire. A boisterous and bad-ass movie with Willem Dafoe as the Rockabilly From Hell.
And that’s all she wrote!