Did a 360

An alert light showed on my dashboard earlier this week. (It turned out to be no big deal.) Then I had a bad dream that I was measuring the air in my tires, and a front tire was ten pounds lower than a rear tire.

I think I know the cause of that dream. So here is a reprise of my post from a previous year.

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It was rainy today, and I slowed down to what I thought was a safe speed to go from I-405 south to the ramp for NE 8th, to get to Bellevue Square. There is some familiar metal plate in the ramp that is for access to the storm drains or something. I did a slight jink to the right to avoid it.

My car went into a spin to the right. I couldn’t believe it. I turned the steering wheel into the spin, but it went out of control. I admit I kept my foot on the brake instead of pumping it, but the car has anti-lock brakes. Anyway, as the car did a full 180 and I saw other cars on the ramp avoiding me, stepping on the gas pedal might have been inadvisable.

After another 90 degrees, I might have tried the gas a little, I don’t remember. But I felt the back of the car scrape the concrete barrier on the right of the ramp. That’s probably what slowed the spin. I managed to stop the spin at about 360 degrees, but because of the curve of the ramp, the car was still angled a little into traffic. I immediately put the flashers on, restarted the engine (it had probably stopped in the 180 position, so it didn’t matter if I had tried the gas), and moved it a little farther so other drivers would have time to see me as they came onto the ramp.

My immediate thoughts were on how much it would cost to get a rental car as my car was being fixed. 

I got out into the rain to see what I expected to be the mangled rear bumper. I was astonished to not see any damage. Closer inspection showed a scrape about the size of the palm of my hand, revealing tiny specks of paint had come off, showing the primer underneath. Further inspection showed no other damage.

It drives straight, and nothing odd happens when I take my hands off the steering wheel to brake on level pavement. My view is the scrape against the barrier was providential, since otherwise I could have gone beyond 360 and had the right front end of the car hit, and that would have been bad.

At the Bellevue Square parking lot, I found the right front tire had ten pounds lower pressure than the others. This confirmed my suspicion it has a slow leak, losing ten pounds in somewhat over a month.

Oddly enough, this incident didn’t really bother me the rest of the day. What bothered me was going to the Panda Express at Bellevue Square, having to find a place to sit in the lower part of the mall, realizing I hadn’t gotten a fork, then packing my lunch up to go back up the elevator to get one.

Doxacon

I went to Doxacon, a Christian science fiction and fantasy convention. It was on Saturday, Feb. 8th, in Woodinville, a suburb of Seattle. Its name comes from the fact it was founded by an Eastern Orthodox priest.

Scenery outside

The attendance was somewhat over fifty, compared to a normal six thousand for Norwescon or thousands more for Worldcon.

One of the volunteers running things was Megan.

The day started with a worship service, the Daily Morning Prayer service of the Anglican/Episcopal Church.

Then, while people were getting coffee or tea or finding their seats, a tall woman with long dark hair simply stood at her table. She wore a black sheath with a couple of gold chains at her waist. She didn’t seem to be looking for anyone, so that was puzzling.

She turned out to be SK Ehra, an author and the first speaker. So she had been standing like that to get a feel for the audience. She gave a lengthy, detailed lecture on science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She granted that these can be forms of escapism. But they are a way of going beyond the material universe to grasp truths that we know exist. She used illustrations from a number of books to show such fiction can ask us hard questions about ourselves.

She gave a defense of horror I had never heard before. When horror is done right, it reflects different mental states. If I remember correctly, a person haunted by a ghost may be having guilt for past sins. (Or it could be bad memories. I apologize if I got that wrong.)

Afterwards, I went up to her and said that was the best lecture I had ever heard on the subject, and I had been to many Norwescons and Worldcons. Her lecture was so good because she emphasized the fallen nature of the world.

The Writers Panel was composed of Reece Friesen, Tasha Kennedy, Suzanne Hayek, Aaron Ryan, Rosamund Hodge, and Kevin King. Sorry, I didn’t think to get a group picture. You might look up their books and see what you think.

There were a number of other sessions, some similar to a regular con, some very different. I’m glad I went and experienced something different.

BOOK REVIEW: The Lies of Vampires and Slayers

Jade is a vampire slayer, though she denies it. She comes from a family of vampire slayers, with the inherited ability to sense vampires or blood nearby. But slayers are the hired assassins of the supernatural world, and Jade is through with it. She wants to make a positive difference, so she has left them behind to join the Magical Response Task Force. Teaming up with wizards, were-beings, and vampires, they form an elite force that patrols the streets of Magiford to take on any supernatural rowdies who disturb the peace.

But Jade is not really accepted by her teammates They assume nothing good about her attempts to talk. When she approaches two teammates, who are exchanging friendly insults, “My movement killed Brody and Tetiana’s verbal sparring. Their smiles disappeared when they glanced at me.” (p. 6) What makes it worse is Jade has a phobia of socializing. Her attempts are pathetic, whether with her teammates or ordinary humans in her apartment complex, ending in silence or a few words that don’t sound friendly. When a neighbor holding a baby and a diaper bag tries to talk to her, she just mumbles. Then when the neighbor struggles her way into an elevator, Jade is belatedly able to talk. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I should have—and she’s gone.” (p.74) Going back to the Task Force, Jade has to be careful when she bleeds, because her blood can be deadly to vampires.

Jade turns out to be quite effective. She has enough dexterity that she can climb a chain link fence with a dagger in either hand, then perch on the edge of an open dumpster. She also seems to sprint farther than a normal human can. And when six insects the size of cars invade from the fae realm, six members of the Task Force fight them. Jade doesn’t want to use her handgun, since humans are around, so she stabs two of them to death by herself.

The running gag/slow burn throughout the story is her relationship with an immensely old, extremely powerful vampire named Considine. Jade encounters him and wonders what he is doing in Magiford. He happens to move in next to Jade and calls himself Connor. Since Jade always wears a mask while on patrol and never reveals her name, and since Considine always has his hood scrunched together when outside so only his red eyes can be seen, they don’t recognize each other. Since Jade finds it easy to talk to vampires, they spend time together, each lying about their backgrounds. And so Jade finds someone she can get close to.

K.M. Shea’s The Lies of Vampires and Slayers kept my interest throughout. But it was not because of the quality of the storytelling. It had all to do with Jade’s personality. Her phobia of socializing is realistically described, and her fumbling attempts to do small talk are achingly realistic. This continues throughout the story, and it never gets old.

A couple of supporting characters also never get old. Tetiana is a female vampire from Ukraine. Since vampires live so long, they often do not keep up with the latest technology. When they are supposed to call in to headquarters, she always shouts into her handheld radio, because headquarters are so far away. Grove is a fairy who constantly carries potions. He offers them whenever a teammate gets hurt. Since some are poisonous concoctions he hurls at monsters, his teammates often turn him down.

So the characters are interesting, but the storytelling is not the best. Often, Shea puts in too much detail. She goes to great lengths to describe the clothing of even minor characters, including the color of each item, which just slows down the storytelling. When running with her radio, Jade notes, “I had to slow a little bit so I’d be understandable as I unhooked my radio and pressed the button so I could talk.” (p. 142) These details do not make the scenes more vivid; they just lard them down.

Also—and don’t roll your eyes at this—she often does not separate participial phrases with commas. When Grove hurls one of his potions, “It shattered on impact showering him with golden liquid.” (p. 267) We need a comma between “impact” and “showering.” This occurs constantly throughout the book, and it jerks a reader out of the story.

On a more meta level, The Lies of Vampires and Slayers is part of a shared universe. This is great for her fans, and is a reason to buy more of her books. But it does not always work smoothly. Jade’s Magical Response Task Force is part of the Curia Cloisters. Shea never defines in this particular book what that is.

But overall, Jade has an engaging personality, and the action scenes are interesting. A great plus is that the novel has no sex scenes and no swearing or foul language. I wish more urban fantasy novels were like that.