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Canterbury Tales – Revisited
Oh dear. It’s been a long time since I read the Canturbury Tales (a collection of twenty-four stories in verse, written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400). I was still a student of English and history at the time. In the “Tales”, a group of pilgrims each tell a story. An early anthology, so to speak. Now I’ve picked up the audiobook as a refresher. Listened to “The Knight’s Tale”. Well, there’s a difference between reading and interpreting a literary work at university and simply enjoying it again. Or trying to. This is now my non-literary summary of “The Knight’s Tale” from my current perspective. And yes, I realise that Mr Chaucer probably found the tale just as ridiculous when writing it, as I do when reading or listening to it. Theseus, King of Athens (King? Really?) has just defeated the Amazons and taken their queen/commander…
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Fantasy – Stealing from History by Jacey Bedford
I was never very good at history in school. Maybe it was the dry way it was delivered, or maybe I simply wasn’t ready for it. We never seemed to take history as a whole. We always ended up studying specific periods which were not connected to the period immediately before or after. So school history was a series of snapshots, not a continuous stream. Louis XI of France followed by the industrial revolution is a big disconnect. My interest in history came long after school. It started with local history. The village where I live is not really old. There’s a farm with a door lintel dated 1642, but most of the houses, and the mill that provided work, date from around 1800. The mill had a water wheel which was fed from a mill pond, which in turn was topped up by an upstream pond which was (still…
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About cons and witches
Part of an author’s life is spent at conventions: weekend gatherings of like-minded people. These wonderful folks can then belong to the book industry, the fantasy and SF fandom or – in this case – filk (singer-songwriter ballads on themes of fantasy, science fiction, horror and whatever a filker can think of). Yes. I confess it freely. I am a filker. Last weekend’s con was dedicated to filk and I met up with a group of friends and hobby musicians) in Wernigerode for music and lots of cosy chatting. After the long pandemic with nothing but online meetings, it was nice to actually see and cuddle “real people” in person again. We were all vaccinated, of course, and did a covid test every morning. The hygiene rules were good. So was the general mood. Since I tore a tendon in my hand some time ago, I unfortunately couldn’t play this…
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New challenges – old haunts
When I stopped working in my day job, I had assumed that I would now write one novel after another. Indeed, my creativity would know no bounds. Reality tends to catch up with you and life intervenes. I spent the first period of the pandemic prostrate on the sofa. Then I started editing my English manuscripts to market them myself. These are available so far Obsidian Secrets (Steam Age Quest, Book 1) Dreams of Salt, Vol. 1 (Steam Age Quest, Book 2) Dreams of Salt, Vol. 2 (Steam Age Quest, Book 3) Call it a Knight (Stories with a Twist, Book 1) Eventually, I found that I spent more time “marketing” than writing. I HATE marketing. I have no talent for blowing my own trumpet. Indeed, I’d be glad if I possessed said trumpet. Now, of course, you can say that I need not have chosen to be a…
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“Weltendiebe” – my new book
„Weltendiebe“ (Thieves of the Worlds) has been published (so far in German only). It took me some time before I could bring myself to selfpublish it at BoD. But: neither I nor the book are getting any younger. Does that sound a bit frustrated? That may well be so. I write books because I love writing books. Because writing fulfils and defines me. When I started out, I had no idea about the “book biz”, the book industry, which is just that: a frig*ing industry. I wrote stories because that was what I wanted to do. Because the story and its heroines and heroes were itching inside my soul and wanted to get out. I had the strength to give them life and that felt wonderful. Very quickly I found out: The fact that you have written an exciting book does not mean that someone wants to publish it. Two…
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My books available in English
When I wrote my first novel, I did write it in English. Some people have asked me why. Actually, there was no particular reason for this, except that I like writing in English. I’m a bit funnier in English than in German. That may be because language also shapes the soul. Language is more powerful than you might think. This is one of the reasons why there are so many discussions about gendering or non-gendering, the use of words that no longer correspond to the zeitgeist or ethical norms, and so on. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. When I couldn’t sell my first (English) book on the English market, my agent at the time recommended that I translate it. It was then published in German and called “Das Obsidianherz“. Three more books of the same series followed, all initially written in English and only then…
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Stay home and read a book
So. Since I don’t want to start each one of my entries with an excuse for not having posted anything for such a long time, I’ll start without further ado. My polar bear was to be presented at Leipzig Book Fair, which unfortunately didn’t take place due to Covid19. “Elgar Polar Bear and Civilisation” . This somewhat episodic book describes the adventures of polar bear Elgar whose ice floe completely melted from under his furry posterior, and who – since he does not want to die out yet –has come to live in our human civilisation. In his endeavour to learn more about civilised urban life he watches and comments our civilisation from his ursine perspective. I have been asked whether this is fantasy since it pretty much consists of satirical elements. Well, it is satire, and it is speculative fiction. Science fiction and fantasy have always been close…
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Black thoughts under blue skies
Dystopian literature seems to be booming. It has become easy to imagine a future in which the human world comes to a bitter end. We are so close to this outcome that our present can already sense this future. It whispers in the wind. It poisons the mind. Of course, I also have ideas for dystopias. Three short stories, which contain different aspects of a truly undesirable development, can be read in my short story collection “Machtschattenpiele (Power shadow games)”. Sometimes, however, our reality is so grey and frightening that I don’t like to write that kind of literature anymore. It’s as if reality has long since overtaken the authors’ imagination. So I take my ideas to strange and foreign worlds. Should these worlds break, no one has to die here. Yet, I think that the problems of imaginary worlds also do reflect our situation and our life and give…
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Losing patience
Not everyone may know this, but I wrote my first four books (Das Obsidianherz, Salzträume, Jenseits des Karussells und Schwingen aus Stein) in English and then translated them into German. Of course, I would have liked them to appear in English, but the way things went is trite and frustrating. The first time I tried to tackle the English-speaking market myself. I wrote to publishers, had myself “recommended” by friends of mine, tried to find an agent in the US and also in England. I cannot say that it was raining letters of refusal, because most of the people/companies I had contacted did not react at all. Finally, the books were published in German – by Feder & Schwert. Of the four books, two received an award. The publisher now tried to place the books on the English market. Perhaps the answers were less abrasive, as publishers might deal more…
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Sunshine and snow
Today, on my way to work, I drove right into a beautiful sunrise. Blood red sky and bright pink clouds from the heating plant chimney. I would have liked to take a picture. But of course: on other days I’m stuck at every traffic light and could just pull up my mobile phone. Today however: excellently phased traffic lgihts and not one stop. The mobile phone stayed in my pocket. Law abinding person and so on. Meanwhile the sky has turned grey again. Eos: How nice of you to take me with you in your car today. Helios: You’re welcome. Are you sitting comfortably in front? Pretty color, that. Eos: Yes. Isn’t it? Helios: And every little cloud individually pink. You are so talented, little sister. Eos: I have a sense for details. And always too little time. Before he comes. Helios: Who? Eos: St. Peter. The one from the…