Yesterday

I have a cold -- got that foghorn voice and attendant URI symptoms, no need to recount them. We had our nephew and my ... niece-in-law? -- here visiting the past few days -- 'twas a lovely visit, by the by -- and so I haven't gotten any work done. Work, for writers, consists of many things, but the only one that counts is how many pages you produce. However, as part of the research on Churl, I went back and re-read the second trilogy of Matador books. Well, two of them so far, and halfway into the third: The Albino Knife, Black Steel, Brother Death.

These books came out in 1991 and 1992, and while I looked up some stuff in them when I started Siblings, I haven't read them since they were published. (I've pointed this out before -- by the time one of my books comes out, I've read it five times -- a couple of drafts, the CE ms, the galleys, and the published novel, at which point, I'm pretty much done with it.)

Two things struck me upon re-reading these: First, it had been long enough that I didn't remember the stories particularly well. In places, I was turning pages, wondering what was going to happen in the next scene. Second was, I kept thinking, "Huh. That's not too bad." I mean, the stories moved right along, and actually had plots and all.)

There's a lot of material in these I can use as b.g. in Churl, since it is going to pick up a few years after Black Steel (and Brother Death) end.

There are some kids I can round up: Little Saval (Veate and Bork's son); Little Mayli (Sleel and Killdee Wu's daughter); Chel (Tazzimi and Ruul's daughter); and, of course Gerard (Sleel and Dirisha and Geneva's son.) And to keep it interesting, the villain is going to be the grandchild of a character from one of the old books, too.

The old crew is getting up there, but since life expectancy is in the 140+ range T.S., they can still be fairly spry in their sixties and seventies. Probably get to see most of them -- Khadaji, Juete, Dirisha, Geneva, Bork, Sleel, and associated spouses and families. (And thanks to Dan's timeline, I can nail down the ages of the characters.) For readers who recall it, the longevity drug being developed in The Brambles, via the Bindodo vine and Uzima edmondia, won't have ripened yet. At the end of Black Steel, we were still about eighty-five years away from that, if I recall correctly.)

And we're off to see the Wizard ...