Friday Fiction Flash

Amy C at Romance Book Wyrm and Dottie atTink's Place have come up with the idea for a Monday Morning Flash Fiction challenge. Each Monday a new picture prompt will be posted and if you choose to participate - you publish your Fiction Flash  on Friday - 350 words, give or take.

This pic was a great found of Blodeuedd. I admit it moved my imagination because you can interpret it in so many ways! As I am off my drug of choice, caffeine, I decided to turn violent.

Out of four trap dens only one was full after the required two days of sacred hunting but one was more than enough. After all it all depended on the quarry. Were it a wild boar or a deer it would be a waste of time and efforts. Meena's slaves had dug these dens and she herself constructed the trapping mechanisms with an utter precision, trying them twice on the weakest slave to be absolutely sure they would work as they should - maiming perhaps, not killing, restraining but not breaking bones. Knowing they worked well the only thing Meena needed was a bit of luck, also called  the Goddess's blessing. A visible sign that she, not the other two contestants, was designated to become the future Queen.

The alert arrow arrived right after the midnight. One trap den caught something. Not trusting anyone with such an important mission Meena decided to go and check herself. When she looked down she couldn't believe her own good luck. One of the warriors. She could clearly notice his tattoos, there was no doubt of his status. Warriors were the best kind of catch - you could sell or exchange them for weapons, you could keep them as pets if you wanted to. There have  been even cases, although rare ones, when a future Queen made her favourite warrior a consort.

The warrior was injured but he could walk on his own. Meena returned with her prize to the palace and caged him in her quarters.Then one of her slaves was sent to dress his wounds, give him some food and adornments. Next day, when the presentation of catches began, she led him proudly to the old Queen. Her two cousins stood there, each with her catch by her side. No one of them was acompanied by a warrior, though. Meena smirked a bit but then her eyes went wide - her oldest cousin, Aude, approached without the necessary ceremonial greetings and pointed rudely at Meena.

"If you think you see the future Queen, you are wrong. You only see a cheat."

The silence was so deep that it ringed in your head.

"Prove it!" snarled Meena when she regained her composure a bit. Now it was Aude's turn to smirk.

"Look at this man. His tattoos are false. They are painted, not inked. It is a simple peasant masquerading as a warrior."

"Liar!" shrieked Meena.

Aude just took a cloth, soaked it in a pool and came closer to the man presented by Meena. She started to wipe the tattoos off his skin. He didn't protest, silently observing Aude's hands. The magical whorls and patterns were disappearing in no time. False. Fabricated. Painted. By whom, though? Meena didn't know but she decided an open attack was the best defence.

"What kind of catch did you bring, dear cousin? A fox? A rabbit? A shrew? My slave is still more valuable than those."

Aude looked at her and drawed her short sword in total silence. Her movements were so fast that nobody reacted. Not until the head of Meena rolled on the ground and her body fell where she stood spouting hot, red blood. 

"That was quick," said the old Queen. "Quick and clever. Aude didn't manage to capture a warrior but she prevented a cheat from having the crown. Our Goddess was silent today so it's up to me to decide and I've taken my decision. Aude deserves our gratitude. I can't imagine a better Queen."

***

Later on, after the coronation, Aude was led to her new quarters. The man who had been caught by Meena accompanied her, keeping reverently his distance. She stopped when they reached the stairs, turned and took his hand.

"Don't hide behind my back. You did well and you will be rewarded for your ordeal as I promised. You will become my consort."

That's how I imagine Aude - in the photo you see a portrait of Meena Kumari (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Silent Saturday

Review: The Batman by Jo NesbØ

Book info:

Format: pdf e-book

Genre: detective novel

Target audience: adults

Once again I have a chance to review a book which, although not exactly new, somehow hasn’t been translated into English yet. I really wonder why. As far as I know (courtesy of Amazon.com of course) it is a beginning of a series featuring the same hero (Harry Hole). Other parts have been translated and published but the first and the second novel (The Cockroaches) – no. By the way  when The Batman was published in Norway in 1997 it became an instant hit, winning the Glass Key Award for best Nordic crime novel (an accolade shared with Peter Høeg, Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson) so it wasn’t a bad debut, quite the opposite in fact. It’s earmarked to be published this year (hey, I am anticipating a trend I suppose - go figure!) but somehow it was omitted previously.

Synopsis:

A thirtyish Norvegian policeman, Harry Hole,  is sent to Australia to help investigating a murder of a Norvegian woman and a tv starlet, Inger Holder, who used to work in a Sydney bar. Australia is not a country Harry imagined to be. He meets his very colourful local counterparts, especially one Andrew Kensington, and learns plenty about the myths and shameful history of Aborigines, the local inhabitants of that continent. Is it pertaining to the murder investigation? Somehow it is.

It seems the murder of Inger was a part of a whole series of similar crimes – strangling and raping of young, blond, single women, often foreigners. Why only a complete outsider saw and recognized that fact? How much murders will it take until the police manage to find the perpetrator?

What I liked:

It was a very interesting book – logical but also surprising. Not that it didn’t follow a well-known pattern of crime stories but the author managed to lead me astray several times with cleverly hidden clues and bright, big red herring swimming to and fro near the surface. I haven’t been entertained so much since my last Agatha Christie novel and this lady, say what you might, could complicate a multiple murder story and outwit her readers splendidly.

Of course reading The Batman (no, I am not saying why such a title, find out on your own) Dame Agatha would blush several times. It is a very contemporary book; well, relatively contemporary – the movies Harry speaks about are such that you can easily notice the relentless passage of time. Still it aged well – I bet plenty of young people, footloose and fancy-free, who are taking a year off in order to go abroad, live carefree and have fun in the sun would recognize friendly souls in their slightly older counterparts shown here, working in Australian bars, posing for a photo before the famous Melbourne Opera House and crowding Bondi beach in the evenings.

The main character is definitely a man who likes living dangerously. He has his own demons to defeat as he is an alcoholic; sometimes he wins sometimes he loses spectacularly, falling into an endless spiral of drinking and bearing the consequences. Overall a very interesting main lead, somebody very far away from prim and proper Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. Still, he shares their brains and the passion of solving puzzles no matter how much it might cost.

Finally let me say that I liked very much the way the author constructed and presented the main baddie. I can’t say a lot in order not to spoil you but believe me, it won me over.

  

What I didn’t like:

Now I will have to continue that series. I got addicted instantly.

Final verdict:

Yes, I recommend this book and I hope the rest of the series will be as good as the first one. You can read it as a stand-alone btw but after finishing I am sure you will want another part even without one ugly cliffhanger urging you to do so. Consider yourself warned – Harry Hole is addictive.

Review: The Fixer: A Lawson Vampire novel by Jon F. Merz

Book info:

Form: e-book, Kindle format

Genre: fantasy, vampire detective story

Target audience: adults

I borrowed a digital version of this book from my friend - thank you very much, pchlaszachrajka! 

Synopsis:

When a bad, big, psychotic vampire called Cosgrove returns to Chicago, one thing is sure: there will be blood and murders galore. Cosgrove doesn’t disappoint his faithful allies and enemies - soon enough the Council, a body supervising all vampires living in that area, condemn him to death. Any death but the sooner the better. Lawson, one of vampire Fixers (so kind of law enforcers)  and his Control (so kind of boss) McKinley are given the order to find Cosgrove and drive something made of wood straight through his dark, scheming heart. The balance must be preserved and there is no balance with such psychos as Cosgrove.

Unfortunately killing him is easier said than done. Firstly, nobody knows what Cosgrove looks like now. Then our baddie has an interesting plan of his own and plenty of other vampires are cooperating with him secretly. When Lawson’s best friend is murdered in a club there’s no looking back, though, especially when a female assassin Lawson falls in love with, Talya, joins the hunt and is kidnapped as a result. Will vampires manage to clean their ranks? How many lives will it cost? Will humans finally find out the truth about vampires?

What I liked:

This novel was highly readable, I really was sucked inside the plot and the more I read the more I wanted to know about our sad vampire protagonist. Lawson was an interesting character mainly because he was so flawed -  an experienced law enforcer who is hardly fearless and has a very unpleasant fund of memories- anyway that’s what made this story work for me. The world Lawson lives in is dangerous but he didn’t choose his life, it chose him, and, while he would have chosen differently, he doesn’t waste a lot of time pining over it either. Well, being so very flawed and in love he whines a bit but not too much.

Talking about the love interest of the main lead I must mention Talya, a big asset of this book. She is an Asian girl – half Chinese, half Kazakh – which I found original. She used to work as a KGB secret agent and now she is a freelancer assassin, also something you hardly expect from a ‘damsel in distress’, usually met in such books. She has a brain of her own and she knows what she wants – another feature I appreciate in my heroines.

 Apart from that Merz did, in my opinion, a wonderful job of setting the fighting scenes. They seemed real and gory but not overly so. I also enjoyed several mentions of Musashi  Miyamoto, a Japanese swordsman and rōnin and bushido, the code of samurai. I like Japanese culture very much and it was like a ‘hello’ from a distant friend.

Finally let me tell you that I appreciated the idea that the vampires in this series aren't some weird type of supernatural creatures but just another species that evolved alongside of humans. That alone opens up many more doors which, I hope, will be explored in next parts.

  

What I didn’t like:

This novel was published for the first time in 2002. That’s exactly ten years ago. It makes itself felt. In other words if you look for a terribly original premise, keep looking because you are bound to be disappointed by this one.

My other complain is that this book could really do with some more extensive editing. I’m not a native English speaker and still I noticed some strange mistakes: e.g. a faulty sentence structure like "I knew your reaction would be worth coming out in this miserable rain for" or an occasional redundancy of word choice, like " Her hips ground in to my face as she rode my face..." (and it was supposed to be one hot scene, imagine that!) A rookie writer mistakes, more often found in low-quality fanfic nowadays than in officially published books (although there are exceptions to this rule).

Now my main complaint. I really couldn’t swallow that Lawson, a centenarian and a vampire with a several decades spent as a black Ops veteran, was from time to time so incredibly sloppy with his detective work. First he readily told his love interest, a human woman after all, that their mutual quarry is a vampire when the mere existence of vampires was supposed to be the biggest secret. He often took really poor operative decisions, allowing the main baddie to escape with ease and flourish. Ok, he was in love, but honestly, you should have expected a better control from such a professional. Also on several occasions Lawson describes himself as reacting "like a fourteen year old boy" to Talya. Well, doesn’t it sound silly? His background and training is given as lengthy, Marine/special forces tough, dangerous and pretty comprehensive but for all of his training Lawson doesn't seem to know what to do in a tight spot and allows situations to worsen through his own failure to deliver.

Final verdict:

 The world building was interesting but not especially original. The characters were complex but not very captivating. Still I want to give this series one more chance. Idealistic, I know...

Silent Saturday

Longleat Maze. (photo credit: Jason Hawkes)

Image by Puzzler4879 via Flickr

Friday Fiction Flash #38

Amy C at Romance Book Wyrm and Dottie atTink's Place have come up with the idea for a Monday Morning Flash Fiction challenge. Each Monday a new picture prompt will be posted and if you choose to participate - you publish your Fiction Flash  on Friday - 350 words, give or take.

It's been ages since I wrote a flash but this week's pic undid me completely:

Patricia was sitting on a hard, wooden chair which looked like a cross between a throne and a piece of furniture straight from a torture chamber - uncomfortable like hell, full of spikes and metal studs. Dark birds (ravens? crows? jackdaws?) were flying around her making a lot of racket and crapping on her lap and feet. She swore loudly when a piece of guano landed on her head as well. She wanted to stand up and escape those pesky birds but she couldn't move, as if she was glued to her seat. She looked up at the overcast sky. 'Dammit, it might rain any time now' she thought. Just her luck - she was wearing a sleeveless dress made of a very thin fabric (silk?) very low cut at the front and hardly anything else. It meant that if she was cold now, she was bound to be freezing pretty soon. And wet. A shiver ran down her spine.

She heard a murmur of voices and thought that finally some help might be coming her way but saw only an endless column of people with heads hung low, some of them limping, most dressed in bloody tatters. Slaves. Other people, riding horses and brandishing long, vicious whips, flanked the column.  She blinked several times hearing ominous swishes through the air and cries full of pain and horror. What was happening and what was she doing here? She made another attempt to move, once again failing spectacularly.

Somebody approached her from behind and whispered into her ear:

"We won, my princess. The darkness will rule forever and you'll marry me today as your father's promised."

She turned her head and saw a big, black raven with a human head sitting on the backrest of her chair. The head smiled nastily, showing blood-stained, sharp teeth; she screamed like mad and woke up with her mouth still wide open and her throat constricted with fear.

Next day Patricia threw away all her Goth wardrobe and accessories. She  couldn't look at them any longer. She dyied her hair brown, as close to her natural colour as she could manage, and put on a lot less of that  black and red eyeshadows than she used to. Even though she repeated in her head that it was just a spooky dream she didn't want to return to that chair, black birds and the darkness. Ever.

May Day

1st of May...if you are celebrating or simply enjoying a day off you might think it is just another tradition connected with the International Worker's Day. Well, it is not so simple.

International Workers' Day is the commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, which occurred after an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed a public assembly during a general strike for the eight-hour workday. Strangely enough (or maybe not strangely at all)  it coincides with a much older holiday with totally pagan origins.

May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers.While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice on June 25 (now June 21) was Midsummer. In the Roman Catholic tradition, May is observed as Mary's month, and in these circles May Day is usually a celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this connection, in works of art, school skits, and so forth, Mary's head will often be adorned with flowers in a May crowning. Fading in popularity since the late 20th century is the giving of "May baskets," small baskets of sweets and/or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbours' doorsteps.


How people celebrate the May Day? In short that depends. Here are some more interesting tidibits I found about the celebrations in different countries:

Great Britain

 (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Traditional British May Day rites and celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen and celebrations involving a Maypole. Much of this tradition derive from the pagan Anglo-Saxon and customs held during "Þrimilci-mōnaþ" (the Old English name for the month of May meaning Month of Three Milkings) along with many Celtic traditions. Of course these celebrations can't be called "widespread" nowadays and their character changes depending on the location. Most often it will be just an open air concert.

Ireland

May Day has been celebrated in Ireland since pagan times as the feast of Bealtaine and in latter times as Mary's day. Traditionally, bonfires were lit to mark the coming of summer and to banish the long nights of winter. Officially Irish May Day holiday is the first Monday in May. Old traditions such as bonfires are no longer widely observed, though the practice still persists in some communities, such as Arklow.

France



On May 1, 1561, King Charles IX of France received a lily of the valley as a lucky charm. He decided to offer a lily of the valley each year to the ladies of the court. At the beginning of the 20th century, it became custom to give a sprig of lily of the valley, a symbol of springtime, on May 1. The government permits individuals and workers' organisations to sell them tax-free. It is also traditional for the lady receiving the sprig of lily of the valley to give a kiss in return. Nowadays, people may present loved ones either with bunches of lily of the valley or dog rose flowers. You must admit it is a far nicer custom that these rowdy marches with flags and banners. Say what you might but French people know how to make life a bit more pleasant!

Germany

In rural regions of Germany, especially the Harz Mountains, Walpurgisnacht celebrations of pagan origin are traditionally held on the night before May Day, including bonfires and the wrapping of a Maibaum (maypole). Young people use this opportunity to party, while the day itself is used by many families to get some fresh air and plan some nice trips.

Finland

Celebrations among the younger generations take place on May Day Eve, most prominent being the afternoon 'crowning' of statues in towns around the country with a student cap.

May Day is known as Vappu, from the Swedish term. This is a public holiday that is the only carnival-style street festivity in the country. People young and old, particularly students, party outside, picnic and wear caps or other decorative clothing.

Some Finns make a special lemonade from lemons, brown sugar, and yeast called "sima". It contains very little alcohol, so even children can drink it. You can also buy a similar product in all stores. Some Finns also make doughnuts and a crisp pastry fried in oil made from a similar, more liquid dough.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day
http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/113/article_3645.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day
http://www.theholidayspot.com/mayday/history.htm