In The OH SWEET POWERS THAT BE, HOW DID THEY FIND OUT...? Dep't...

don’t be afraid to make corrections

don’t be afraid to lend a hand

and don’t look down

Woo Woo keeps walking around the house whispering “I know.” But he won’t tell us what he knows…

Success! India’s First Mars Probe Is In Orbit And Working

“India has managed to do what few other nations have accomplished: putting a satellite into orbit around another planet — and it did so a lot cheaper than the competition.

The $70 million Mangalyaan, or “Mars craft” in Hindi, began circling Mars after a 24-minute engine burn to slow it down enough to be captured by the Red Planet’s gravity.”

Read more from NPR.

Morning On Mars

 Martian sunrises, as seen by the HiRISE orbiter

Clouds Around V1331 Cyg Processing by Judy Schmidt

A complex nebular fountain-like structure that appears to originate from the star it was found around. The morphology of the nebular structure is quantified and discussed. Evidence for secular outflows is found from the optical data.[**]

There was a point where, whenever I ran into my stalker...

…I wanted to greet her with “Fairest and fallen, greeting and defiance, now and always.”

Not because I thought she was literally the Lone Power.  But because she was clearly one of those people the Lone Power was acting through and loving it.  And because dealing with her seemed to be part of my Ordeal.

And honestly because remembering that there are malevolent forces in the universe that use people like her to hurt people (and that she would willingly hand herself over to such forces if she believed in them, she was that kind of person), and that those malevolent forces of the universe can be named, greeted, and resisted, even resisted politely, was very important.

If you ever hear me say anything starting with “Fairest and fallen…” you know I’m serious.  I may be wry, I may be half-joking, but some part of me is deadly serious if you hear those words come out of my mouth.  It means “I know you.  I know what I’m looking at.  I know where your evil comes from, even if you don’t.  And I won’t put up with it, and I won’t stand by and let this happen.”

The Young Wizards books are among a type of books I’ve read that hide deep and meaningful truths about the universe in the guise of ordinary children’s books.  That’s my favorite type of book, ever.

I once read someone on dduane’s tumblr saying that when she was a kid, she would repeat the Wizard’s Oath over and over again, hoping it would make her a wizard.

I wrote to dduane telling her that I hadn’t read them as a kid.  But when I grew up, I found that the Wizard’s Oath had already somehow become etched onto my heart, and it only took reading the words to remember how it happened.  She said she gets that response from adults now and again.

There are many versions of the Wizard’s Oath, and some fans (including me) have made our own recensions.  Each person gets the version they need.  But here’s the one from the first book:

In Life’s name and for Life’s sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so — till Universe’s end.

Here’s a version written for a dinosaur who had been living underground in a dystopian city:

“The Fire is at the heart, and the Fire is the heart; for its sake, all fires whatever are sacred to me. I shall kindle them small and safe where there are none, for the wayfinding of those who come after: I will breathe on those fires about to die in dark places, and in passing, feed those that burn without harm to any; the fire that burns and warms those who gather about it, in no wise shall I meddle with it save that it seems about to consume its cofocals, or to die. To these ends, as the Kindling requireth, I shall ever thrust my claw into the flames to shift the darkening ember or feed the failing coal, looking always toward that inmost Hearth from which all flames rise together, and all fires burn undevouring, in and of That Which first set light to the world, and burns in it ever more…”

And my personal recension:

In the soil, we are all growing, together.  I will moisten the roots of those who need water.  I will never allow the soil to dry out.  I will make room for seeds to grow into plants.  I will allow the soil to consume the parts of me that are no longer needed, and I will reach towards the sun.  I will not touch leaves that may die at my touch, unless it is necessary to prevent some greater harm.  I will love sorrel and tree, fungus and slug, alike.  I will live inside of love, and let love guide me, to the best of my ability.  I will look always to the place where all of our roots reach down as one.  

Does the Lone Power have… an en-trophy wife?

Rebloggable-d by request: Names in the Speech

So this may be an odd question, and not one you’ve thought about much — but how would the Speech interact with someone who uses/identifies as a different name than their birth/legal name? I don’t mean like Kit — presumably his name in the Speech would include a phrase along the lines of ‘Christopher, called Kit’ — but a case where the birth name has been ‘rejected’, and isn’t part of the wizard’s identity at all.

intheafterlight

What is an Ocean but a Multitude of Drops?

I’ve been pondering the recurring notion in Young Wizards—introduced in the first book—that “even…unmagical-seeming actions” have importance in the fight against entropy. Whether it’s turning the lights off when one leaves a room, having a kind word for someone in need of encouragement, or just using the bus for transport to an alien mall crawl (“Wizards are supposed to use public transport—it’s ecologically sound!”), these little choices are no less important than galaxy-spanning fights with the Lone Power. And indeed, it’s often the little things—like Nita’s space pen or Ponch’s squirrels—that make the big victories possible.

It’s a concept that recurs in several of my other favorite works of fiction, as well. Rory’s father, Brian, from the most recent season of Doctor Who springs immediately to mind. A down-to-earth sort, Brian spends his screentime changing lightbulbs, carefully watching alien artifacts for days on end, and throwing golf balls for nearby dinosaurs to play fetch with. Unlike most of the Doctor’s associates, he doesn’t progress from these humble beginnings into something “remarkable”—he never becomes immortal or the Bad Wolf or anything like that. But instead, his very mundane habits are exactly what’s needed to save the world on multiple occasions. And when the Doctor offers to let him travel across time and space full-time, his response is simply, “Somebody’s got to water the plants.”

I bring this up because it’s a rather uncommon line of thought, on the whole. Far more common is the desire to change oneself, to journey forth from humble origins and grow into something great, to leave a mark on the world. But examples like the ones I mentioned above suggest that perhaps we’re not on the way to doing something remarkable—we already are, from one day to the next.

In the final lines of Cloud Atlas, both the book and the film (I heartily recommend either, incidentally), one of the protagonists ponders the notion that his efforts to change the world only amount to “a single drop in a limitless ocean.”

"But what is an ocean," he concludes, "but a multitude of drops?"

The same, I think, applies to all of us. We may not all be heroes or luminaries who command the destinies of millions, but within the smaller confines of our individual lives, every choice we embark upon makes a difference. And ultimately, the whole of human history is comprised of nothing else but people making decisions, many of them seemingly unimportant, one day at a time. Taken all together, though, it adds up to something remarkable. No man is an island, and every rock idly tossed into a pond produces ripples.

It’s both encouraging and terrifying to think about.

How much of YW was planned from the beginning? E.g. did you know about Bobo when you were still writing SYWTBAW?

Nope. Bobo happened along the way.

I did know from the very beginning that this was going to be a series (contrary to some people’s beliefs, especially the ones who consider the closure at the end of High Wizardry very complete). But initially I wasn’t sure where I was going with it except in very general terms. By the end of Deep Wizardry, though, I was starting to get some ideas of some things that were going to have to happen, and of how much further this could go if I got lucky and the sales were good enough to keep me at the same publisher. …But then the publisher (Dell) changed hands (managerially) and “changed directions”, as they like to say, and just after I turned in High Wizardry they started the process of offloading all their midlist authors and concentrating their attention and promotion on their bestselling writers. (In the process, for example, throwing Jane Yolen overboard. How stupid can you get?)

There has never been any overarching blueprint or master outline. But as I was working on HW I started to see the path ahead much more clearly. (Which got kind of frustrating when Dell dumped me; A Wizard Abroad wound up being published first in the UK, by Transworld / Corgi, and then by the SF Book Club, before Jane went on to wrangle the new YA imprint at Harcourt and bring me aboard). While I was working on Abroad I already knew that the events of The Wizard’s Dilemma would have to happen, and could see the difficulties that would come of them; and while I was working on Dilemma, the arc that kicks off in Holiday solidified a lot further. And so forth. This is the way it always seems to go in this series: things build and develop in three- or four-book stages, pulling in data from earlier books and making more sense of them in the overall picture.

Yet it would also be true to say that one specific issue-arc that launched in SYWTBAW has not yet paid off, has been more or less constantly on my mind since 1983, and will finally start its resolution in book 11. And whatever you’re thinking it is, I guarantee you that’s not what I have in mind. Seriously: this particular thing, no one will have seen coming. Promise.

There… that should make everybody crazy enough for one day.

Young Wizards is my favorite book series because where else are you going to find a book where a twelve year old, an alien elf prince, a talking tree, and a crystal centipede all get together to do surgery on the sun.