*I meant to do a real post, but I came down with something that appears to be upper respiratory. I’m only about 1/3 as sick as Dan is — of course our doctor is on vacation — but bad enough that reading is an effort and for the first time in many years I spent an entire day watching old mystery series, without even the benefit of hand work to keep me awake. I’m in that uncomfortable space where I’m too sick to work and too well to sleep. So I’m leaving you with the opening to Noah’s Boy and going back to bed and seeing if I can sleep a bit more before sleep won’t come.*
Noah’s Boy
Sarah A. Hoyt
Riverside Park, at the edge of Goldport, was a thrill whose time had passed. Competing with the various flags, gardens and other franchised, national attractions which specialized in rides based on the latest technology, its main advantage and being cheap and therefore it appealed mostly to the young, the recent immigrants and the impecunious.
Slumbering quietly at the edge of a small lake – the River in the name being one of those mysteries no one could explain – its entrance tower dated back from the orientalist period of the nineteenth century when pseudo arabesques had been in vogue. It looked quite nice at night, when no one could see its flaking paint and bright little lights outlined its contours making it look like something out of a fairytale.
Its vast central pavilion, which once had hosted shows by all the big bands and dancing by all the fashionable local couples, now housed bumper cars. The hippodrome that had seen horse races back in the middle of the twentieth century had long since closed and its sun-bleached carcass, encircled in a tall wall as incongruous and desicated as the bones of a long-dead dinosaur, was posted all over with signs warning visitors off.
Not that many visitors were interested. Most came for the corny spider rides, the colorful dragon roller coaster, and the not very horrible house of horrors. A few afficionados and romantic souls came for the wooden roller coaster or the turn of the – twentieth – century merry- go-round.
But right then, early May, the only people in the park were there to work. Teams of men fanned out up slope and down path, cutting down the knee high grass and calling to each other in Spanish.
Jason Cordova straightened up, as the mower he’d been pushing choked on the weeds. Man, the least they could do is get some riding mowers. Rent them or something. And if not, then with grass like this, we should be using scythes.
Despite the relatively mild weather, sweat glued his t-shirt to his body and his jeans felt like they had insects climbing up inside them. He knew it was probably his imagination, but he still had to supress an urge to scratch and an even stronger urge to take off his jeans and shake them.
He listened to the chatter around him and frowned. It’s like they went to the day labor office and picked everyone with a Spanish name. Which was probably exactly what they’d done. And it wasn’t that Jason didn’t speak Spanish. He did. He’d studied it in college. For all the good it was doing him in the current economy.
A shout that he couldn’t quite understand but that seemed to mean he should be getting back to work made him say, “Yeah, yeah,” as he started pulling the cord to restart the mower. But the motor only sputtered, and then he realized the shout hadn’t been at him.
Instead, his coworkers were shouting to each other and running towards an area where tall grass remained. Oh, what the hell, Jason thought, as he ambled in that direction, wondering exactly what they’d found there. A credit card? Someone’s illegal weed patch? Or, judging by the trend of the conversations he’d heard before, and what seemed to really interest all his co-workers, perhaps there was a girl there who’d somehow lost all her clothes?
Before he got to the place, he saw two of the guys running away, their face more green than olive, and another one throwing up into a recently mowed patch.
Jason jogged forward the next few steps. And froze. Laying on the trampled tall grass was one of the men he’d come here with this morning. He was small, probably Mexican. What remained of his white t-shirt was torn and covered in red-black blood. The lower half of his body was unrecognizable – his stomach torn open, the guts spilling. It looked like something had eaten a good portion of the guts.
He’d never know quite how it happened, but he found himself throwing up, too, right beside the tall grass. But as he straightened, wiping his mouth to the back of his leather gloves, he realized there were a lot fewer men around. Like… none. Though he could see one or two in the distance, jumping the fence, and another desperately swimming across the lake.
Oh, good God, he thought, as he called aloud, “Stay, don’t go. We must report this to the police.” Which he realized was exactly the wrong thing to say, as they ran even faster.
A trail of moving grass near at hand called his attention, and he rushed there, determined not to face the police alone. “Stop,” he said. But then realized it wasn’t one of his co-workers he was looking at. It wasn’t any human. It had to be the largest feral dog he’d ever seen. Well… feral something. Immense, beastly, its maw stained with blood, it looked like what happens to big bad wolves who die and don’t go to heaven.
Jason felt his body clench and twist. His mouth contorting, he managed to pull off his jeans and t-shirt before they got shredded. “Nice doggie,” he said.
***
Rafiel felt like he was going stark, raving mad.
Okay, so no murder investigation – or in this case, what seemed to be the investigation of death by misadventure – was ever a good thing. Ever.
Goldport wasn’t exactly a crime capital, but as one of four senior investigators in its serious crimes unit, Rafiel saw his share of seamy underside: thefts, break ins, the occasional drunken Saturday night mutual shoot out, and the share of drug traffic that couldn’t be avoided anywhere in these days. They even had murders – quite a few recently.
But on this particular Friday afternoon, he’d been finishing his paperwork, and giving some thought to the girl his parents had arranged for him to go out with that night. His parents – heck, almost anyone – were anxious to see him matched up. Nearing thirty and living in your parents’ house was not how the story should go. Particularly not when you were a successful police officer. But Rafiel’s parents should know better.
They knew that their son shifted into a lion at the drop of a hat, or sometimes even without any hats dropping. They knew he lived in fear of hurting someone while shifted, and also that normal people, who didn’t change shapes, wouldn’t understand that he remained throughout more than half human: that in either form he tried to do the best he could and serve justice.
What did they think would happen if a woman came home to find her husband – or fiancé – had changed into a giant jungle cat? Did they think she would take it as an inconvenient but endearing thing. Oh, well, he’s a lion shifter, but at least he makes good coffee?
He could only imagine his parents’ desire for grandchildren had overwhelmed their common sense. Leaving him with the task of taking this “daughter of old friends” on a first date, being polite and nice but cold, so she wouldn’t feel too disappointed when he never called again.
Some days he wished he didn’t know there were female shifters in the world, and that he were unaware that Kyrie Smith, one of his two best friends, shifted into a panther. Some days he wished he could help thinking that he and Kyrie could have made a go of it, if the other one of his best friends hadn’t been around. But Tom Ormson had been around. And though he was quite unsuitable for Kyrie as a shifter – shifting into dragon – he was very compatible with Kyrie as a human.
Rafiel had had doubts about that, in the beginning, but once those two had got together, they’d stopped being individuals and become a whole that was bigger than the sums of its parts: they’d become Tomandkyrie, a composite creature more competent than either of them separate, and so assured that they were one, that he might as well try to separate siamese twins.
What made things worse, was that Rafiel wasn’t even sure he would have a chance with Kyrie if something happened to Tom. He had a feeling that a Rafielandkyrie creature would not be nearly as good as Tomandkyrie, and might in fact fail to gel at all. And besides, he liked Tom, the scruffy, scaly bastard that he was.
No. What Rafiel really needed to do was find a girl he could love and who wouldn’t mind his shifting. And the last requirement cut down the population of eligibles to a negligible number, most of whom would live too far away for him to ever meet.
He’d been contemplating that when his afternoon had got worse, with the phone call. Riverside Amusement park, the place where, even at the height of the season, if one dropped a virus that selected for non-native-Spanish speakers, no one would catch it, had had some sort of death and the police was called to investigate.
It had been hard to understand what the heck was going on, because the person calling it in kept lapsing into something that Rafiel suspected was Greek. But Rafiel had caught stuff about a mountain lion and Mexicans and – this was emphatic – definitely not the owner’s fault.
Now he stood in the middle of Riverside, while a medic, who’d accompanied the police, patched up one of the workers: the only one remaining. Not far from them, in the long grass, a forensic team went over the victim: hispanic, late twenties and dead. Very dead. According to the forensic team several feet of intestine – and various other things – were missing.
They hadn’t found the mountain lion, yet. But that wasn’t the worst news. The guy who’d been mauled and was being patched up, said it wasn’t a mountain lion but more like a dog, but even that he wasn’t sure of. He said it was a weird animal.
And Rafiel could smell shifter. It was a smell he’d decided only shifters could smell, metallic, with a salty tang, and unmistakable once you first smelled it. And it was all over the place.
“So, it was a dog?” he asked the guy who sat on the chipped cement bench by the closed spider ride – the big black apparatus with its cup like seats frozen and vaguely threatening in the afternoon light.
The guy’s name was Jason Cordova, not withstanding which, he spoke English perfectly and without the slightest hint of an accent. His only Spanish words came flying out as as the emergency medic bandaged his arm and shoulder, which seemed to have been mauled by something. Something with sharp teeth. His white t-shirt, smeared in blood, lay on the bench by his side.
Jason was dark enough to be some variety of Hispanic, though most of it, Rafiel thought, would be due to his working outside in the sun. He wore his hair short, with the tips dyed white-blond, and he looked at Rafiel and shook his head then tried to shrug, which brought about another outbreak of Spanish, in which the word Madre featured prominently. “It looked like a dog,” he said, at last, looking at Rafiel out of narrowed eyes, though they seemed to be narrowed more in pain than in suspicion. “But it didn’t fight like any dog. And it didn’t bite like any dog.” He shook his head. “I was lucky I had my hunting knife, because the day labor office is in a bad area and– Anyway, I must have cut it halfway to pieces before it let me go. And its jaws were like… steel clamps.”
“I’ve never seen a bite like this,” the medic who’d come with the ambulance Rafiel had called, and who was probably a male nurse said. He blinked grey eyes behind coke-bottle glasses. “And I’ve treated all sorts of injuries, even people mauled by mountain lions.” He looked at Jason. “You’re very lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah, I feel lucky,” he said, in the tone that implied he didn’t. “I’m unemployed, divorced, crashing on a friend’s sofa, and, on good months, making enough to pay for my own food and fuel, and now I’m going to have to pay for the ambulance someone called. It’s not like the park– ”
The medic grinned, and started to put his stuff away in a little bag. “Nah, the park will pay. It’s not like they want you to go to hospital and have to show papers. I’ve sent the ambulance back anyway, so it’s just my time.” He stopped. “I suppose you do have papers, anyway.”
“Sure I have them,” Jason said, sounding vaguely amused. “I suspect I was the only one. But I didn’t tell the owners. They can’t pay minimum wage or do all the paperwork stuff, and if I’d told them I wanted that, they’d never have hired me.”
“Yeah, I won’t tell them. You keep a watch on that. I disinfected as much as I could, but there might be something left in there. It’s a deep wound. If you notice a ring of red form and start to expand, get yourself to emergency and fast. Oh, and…”
But Rafiel was no longer listening. Instead, he was smelling the air around him. It didn’t much matter to him – or not exactly – whether the creature was a dog or a mountain lion, or some mutant, undefined creature.
What mattered – and this was very important – was that he could smell shifter in the area, all around. There was a sweet-metallic tangy scent that he knew all too well. He smelled it everyday in his own clothes, and rising from his own body. And he smelled it from Kyrie and Tom and the dozen or so shifters who frequented the George – the diner Kyrie and Tom owned together.
The thing was that the scent lingered in areas where shifters had been. Sometimes for hours. It had been so strong around the dead man, that Rafiel was sure he’d been a shifter himself. But was the killer a shifter or not?
It made all the difference. As Rafiel stood here, away from the scene, he could hear the forensic team discussing their findings in the blood-spattered area with long grass, where the body had lain.
If the killer was just a wild animal on the loose, then Rafiel could let them figure it out in their own way. There would be the routine of a police investigation, the normal adding up of evidence till you could take the case to trial and corner whoever was responsible for the animal being lose: police, park or perhaps the owner of the animal. Then whoever was responsible would be fined or given community service, or something.
In that case, throughout all of it, Rafiel would be just be Officer Trall, a professional and well trained police officer.
But if the killer had been a shifter in his shifted form, it all changed. Because a shifter who killed once, rarely stopped killing unless he were caught. And it wasn’t as though Rafiel could bring the apparatus of the law to bear on him. You couldn’t really tell a judge “this isn’t a dog, it’s a werewolf.”
Well, you could. But then they put in a nice resting place, medicated to the eyeballs. And, given that Rafiel himself was a shifter lion, heaven only knew what the meds would do to his shifting. He might become a lion and eat a few nurses not-in-a-good-way. He took a long whiff of the air. There was the smell from the dead body, the smell around it, and another smell.
“Hey, something wrong? You allergic to something?” the medic asked.
And Rafiel became aware that he’d been sniffing for al he was worth, as though he expected to find his way with his nose. Which he probably could. In fact, he would swear the smell came from back there, from the path to the parking lot, past the closed up hippodrome.
“Ragweed,” he said, automatically. It had the advantage of being true, not that it mattered. “So, could you write me just an informal report on the wounds? In case I have to take this to trial.”
“You can’t take an animal to trial,” the medic said. Then grinned sheepishly. “Though I suppose you could take his owner. And maybe should. But I bet you it doesn’t have one. I bet you it’s one of those wild animals that seem to show up further and further into town every year. Like that Komodo dragon that went around eating people, what was it? Two years ago? And did you hear about the bear who went through the trash dumpster behind the alcohol and tobacco kiosk on Fifteenth? He then ran through bar row, looking dumpsters. When they tried to catch im, he ran through ten backyards and across five streets, before being struck by a car as he ambled across the road in front of Conifer Park. And I bet you that they treated him and freed him, too, probably not too far from town. Ready to do the same again next year. A miracle he didn’t kill someone.”
Rafiel made a perfunctory nod and said, “Nothing we can do, eh? It’s the way it is. But I still need that report.”
“Right. I’ll write up something. It won’t be Shakespeare.”
“No problem. Shakespeare didn’t really report on medical conditions and it wouldn’t do us any good to be told the wound is not as wide as a church door.” Rafiel said. The intensity of the smell was driving him insane. It was separating itself into strands, too: the dead body, or the area around it, and a trail leading to the hypodrome and another…
He should – to follow proper procedure – go over to where the forensic team was working and see if there was anything else they needed. Instead, frowned as Jason put on his blood spattered but intact t-shirt over his badly mauled body. The shifter smell hit Rafielfull in the face, and he stared, his mouth half open.
The medic was walking away, far enough along the path that he wouldn’t hear anything that Rafiel or Jason said. And Jason had just turned a puzzled and slightly weary face to Rafiel.
“Hunting knife, uh?” Rafiel said. “I don’t suppose you want to show it to me?”
Jason blinked. A dark tide of red flooded behind his tanned skin. “I must have dropped it,” he said. “Somewhere in the grass, I guess,” and with a shrug. “Maybe your team will find it.”
Rafiel sighed. He dropped to sitting in the space of bench open beside Jason. “I’d think you were the killer, you know, and that those wounds were received from whatever that poor bastard,” a head inclination towards the crime scene, “turned into, except that they say he’s been dead since probably really early morning, before you came to work. They think he was one of he guys they hired yesterday, and he decided to bunk here for the night. And your wounds are fresh. So it’s clear there’s yet a third shifter around – or maybe a second, if that’s his smell around the corpse – and that you got those wounds in a fight with him. But don’t go telling me about a hunting knife. You might have cut the shifter up pretty bad but it was all teeth and claws, wasn’t it?”
Silence went on so long, that if Rafiel couldn’t smell the scent of shifter coming from Cordova, made stronger by exertion, and mixed with his blood, he would have thought he was imagining it.
But then Cordova spoke, his voice very tired. “I see. The police know.”
“Eh. This policeman knows,” Rafiel said, smelling for all he was worth, intent to the shift in adrenaline that would signal that the man was about to attack. Or shift and attack. It never came. There weren’t even any great movements. Rafiel extended his legs in front of him, doing his best to appear at ease
Turning, he found that Cordova was staring at him, studying him. “What… do you change in to?” the man asked at last.
“Lion, you?”
“Bear.” And to what must have been sudden comprehension in Rafiel’s face, “Hey, I’m broke, and I guess I like liquor? I don’t know. I don’t remember much when I’m already tipsy and then become… you know… That hike from the forest reserve about killed me too. Just happy we heal fast. And that the person who found me thought I’d got drunk and undressed while drunk, and got me clothes and food.”
“I have a cell phone,” Rafiel said. “Strapped to my thigh with one of those plastic coil things. Stays in place even when I shift. That way, if I end up too far from where my clothes are, I can always call friends.”
“Smart that,” Cordova said, and looked down at his feet. “Only you have to have friends who know, and I don’t have those. Even my wife didn’t know. She thought I kept disappearing and was having an affair, and when I didn’t want to talk to her about it, she said I was emotionally unavailable.” He shrugged.
They sat side by side a little while, then Cordova said, “But that guy, the dead one, I don’t think he was shifter. I think the shifter smell is from the killer. It’s really strong around all that area, and it goes that way.” He pointed the same way Rafiel had been smelling it.
“Could it be one of the other workers?” Rafiel asked. “Were did they go?”
A grin answered him. “It’s as I told you before,” he said. “They ran so fast, they’re probably halfway to Mexico by now.”
“Yeah, but what path did they take out of the park, do you remember?”
This got him a very odd look, as it should have, because Jason was not stupid. Clearly, from his diction, his vocabulary, the man was smart and well educated. He stood up on visibly shaky legs. “Three of them went that way. And a bunch ran that way. And then a few ran that way.”
He pointed in three directions, in which the park ended in a fence, bordering a little used road. Which made sense if you were an illegal worker trying to run away.
“Not that way?” Rafiel asked, pointing in the direction of the path to the parking lot.
Jason shook his head. “Nah. None of them had cars, you know? The owners picked us up in a truck.” He hesitated a moment. “Say, you’re not going to try to catch them or…?”
“I’m not INS,” he said. “And if I caught them, there would only be a mess and they’d end up on the streets again.”
“It’s just,” Jason said, gesturing with his head towards the ticket house where a motley group of people who looked Greek and who seemed to be the extended family of the owner of the park. They were arguing – or perhaps just talking – in very loud voices. “That I don’t think they have much choice.”
“The workers?”
“Any of them. The workers come because they’re hired, and these people hire them because they couldn’t afford minimum wage much less all the deductions and things.” He frowned. “This minimum wage law and the benefits and things, it’s all very pretty on paper, but it’s like legislating the weather, man, it does no good. All it does is make you think everything is fine until reality bites you some place or other.”
Rafiel nodded thinking that Jason was definitely over-educated, but just said, “So none of them went where the smell goes,” he said. “Which means… Shit. There is another shifter at bay.”
Cordova hesitated. He lifted his hand, then let it fall. He looked over his shoulder and all around, to make sure he was suitably isolated and that no one could hear him. Then he sighed. “Man, I don’t want to tell you this. You look like you have troubles enough.”
“What?”
“After… in the fight, you know… I had a pretty good grip on this dude, and I was biting and then…”
“And then?”
“He shifted and slipped out of my grasp,” Jason said. “He just became this skinny, young dude, maybe fourteen or fifteen…” He hesitated while Rafiel gave vent to a string of profanity, from which – his having grown up in Colorado and having Spanish-speaking friends, the word “Madre” was not entirely absent.
Jason Cordova just nodded at it, as though Rafiel had made an observation worth noting, then said, “Yeah, but… that’s not the worst of it. I grant you I was shifted myself, and I don’t remember what happened really clearly, but from the way he looked and how… well… I don’t think he’s all there. And I’m almost sure he’s not, you know… normal. His eyes, you know. They were more feral as human than in animal form.”
Update: The previous books in this series Draw One In The Dark and Gentleman take a chance are available in electronic, non DRM format from Baen Webscriptions
I should have said that earlier, but thinking hurts. Turns out “feel much better” lasted … two hours, and then a truck ran over me, which is weird, since there’s no highway through the bedroom.
According To Hoyt 
Will we see Jason at the George? [Smile]
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Sorry, forgot the “follow-up” check mark.
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I’m sorry you’re sick. :(
I do love the snippet, though. I love the Shifters series, and I’m always thrilled with more of it.
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What’s weird is that it’s coming out in such a different style from the first two. Not even sure why, except it’s been years.
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Viewpoint of the world changed? You’re a different writer than you were four years ago? Hard to say. I like where this is going, though. Oso.
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I’m a different writer. I tried to force it to fit the other two books, but I can’t get my head there anymore.
Oso?
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Oso = bear. :)
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Oh. I thought acronym. (Is slow.)
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You mean “is sick”. Plus you’re Portuguese. Not like you guys speak any proper Spanish to start with… ;-)
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We’re rather proud of not speaking Spanish. My ancestors fought long and hard NOT to speak Spanish.
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Successfully, I’ll add. Of course, my ancestors were too busy trying to repopulate the New World to subjugate anyone else, outside of the Reconquista.
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Except for those sixty years and Filipe I and II (of Portugal. I don’t remember their numbers in Spain) which we were dutifully instructed to deface in the history books in elementary and did — you ONLY THINK I’m joking…
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Oh, Bloody Mary’s husband. Wow.
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Yep. That one and his son.
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*cough*
And threw my ancestors out in order to avoid paying off your loans. “Isabella pawned the crown jewels to fund Columbus” sorta overlooks what her hubby did to the pawnbrokers.
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Er… and that’s when things got really hot for my ancestors… No one expected the Spanish inquisition in Portugal.
(Actually the Portuguese inquisition was odder — much, much odder. In some ways more lethal and lasted longer, in other ways… just weird.)
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Yeah, I try to stay out of the whole “My eighteen times great uncle did such-and-such to your great uncle fourteen times removed…” argument. It does make tracing my genealogy more fun, though.
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Given that about seven generations back we ALL connect, according to the statisticians, carrying a grudge beyond that seems foolish. Being democratic I find it far preferable to dislike you for what you are rather than what your ancestors may or may not have done. OTOH, the other way does save time.
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Ancestors know-um which way wind blowing. Marry white-man traders. Pick most stubborn, better to keep-um heritage. Learn-um love red hair.
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Nor were they inclined towards speaking French, either.
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I liked your technique for inserting a rant without making it seem preachy or stand out too much in the story: have another character essentially roll their eyes at it. It came off very well, I think, without casting doubt on the validity of the observation. I’ll have to remember that approach.
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I want to read more of this one… it is the style of writing that I like… :-)
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series? this has a series? excuse me while I go hunt that down…
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Draw One In the Dark is the first book, Gentleman Takes A Chance is the second.
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so I see… And oooh, they’ve got them at Baen! Thanks!
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Rest and chicken soup? We had the week long knock you on your rear unable to think flu go through here recently. We ended up sleepin 12-14 hours a day for 7 days straight!
Rough eta on the publication of this from Baen? Its a great start to a novel you crack dealer you! :)
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My husband seems to have that, and he’s still very ill. I’m better now… NOT ‘up to normal’ but today I could draw, instead of staring vacant-eyed at the tv. NO idea on ETA, but I’m going to guess if I can send it in withing the month (fingers crossed) it will be out fall next year.) I also owe Toni the second of the Earth revolution. (You’ll see…) Of course Baen. I’ll probably be doing TB&TF on my own, but stuff for Baen comes FIRST.
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*ponders a feral were-human, raised as wolf/coyote…*
Hope you feel better soon!
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Raised by wolves!
Maybe the “new style” is because you’re starting with a new character, and that Rafiel, instead of Kyrie or Tom.
Sounds like Kung Fu. Drunken Bear Style.
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Well, this is Rafiel’s book, to an extent. Not exclusively, and Kyrie and Tom are still main characters, but it… uh… Rafiel finds someone. Two someones. And they’re BOTH trouble. :-P
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I’ll likely still read it, but that kind of makes me look forward to it a little less than I had been. I like the character, but I don’t find him interesting if that makes sense.
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LOL. He becomes VERY interesting. There’s still stuff going on with Kyrie and Tom too. For one, the GDS has decided Tom must marry his granddaughter. Let’s say it doesn’t go as planned.
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See, now the granddaughter thing I do find interesting. So I’m back to wanting it again. Your making me flip flop more than a politician. Can you say if any of this will hint or reveal GSD’s motivation for why he did what he did in the last two books or is this just more laying onto that mystery?
And I’m still waiting to find out about Kyrie’s birth situation as well. I guess it could just be I still too enamored with what is going with them that I can’t get interested in Rafiel. More than likely thought it is just my tendency not to get invested in side characters. I’ve always been that way. Any way, Noah’s Boy was the only new one commissioned as yet in the series, correct? Either way for your sake and ours I hope NB does really well. :)
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It reveals what the GDS has in mind, yes. At the very end there’s hints of Kyrie’s ancestry.
You know, that first cover blighted the whole series. But there’s always hope.
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One thing I think that doesn’t help is that anyone looking for electronic copies may not know they can buy them from Baen. I owned the first two books for quite awhile and kept going to Amazon looking for the electronic copies never knowing that for the longest time they had been available direct from Baen. There, for me at least, was no natural connection between the two. I can’t help but think that lack of this awareness might hurt sales too, since it did in my case.
Now of course I have your books on my shelves and in my Kindle, but if I preferred ebook over dead tree I could still be click the “I’d like to read this book on Kindle” link oblivious to the fact I can already get it.
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TRUST me no one would be happier than I if Baen went on Amazon. That is the only big problem I have with the house — but I understand there’s very good reasons for it, having to do with contracts. I don’t get it, but I’m not the publisher.
So… when I mention baen books I’ll have to make a note somewhere “Oh, you can buy it for nook or kindle here”
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Sorry you’re sick, but good stuff here.
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Draw One in the Dark was what got me started in Hoyt-o-rama. Excellent news that there is another in the series.
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Thank you. I just read a review (by accident, I assure you) claiming the characters are too dumb to live, so I needed that. (Well, they’re not… wise. They’re very young. BUT I don’t think they’re stupid. But then I’m still trying to get over the review that claimed Thena was dumb and the one that thought that Nat was a “pretty boy dumb bimbo.” (cries.))
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Of course, you’d only call Nat a bimbo… once. And the next few hours of your life would be interesting indeed.
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Would that be the same review that claimed Thena was weak, because she fell in love? Makes one wonder what is wrong with the reviewers love life; maybe she came home early and caught her husband in bed with another man?
By the way, I thought Thena was pretty sharp; naive enough to do some stupid things sure, (most young people are) but if she never made a wrong decision, it would make the story pretty unrealistic.
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Yes, indeed, it was. I think it’s an extreme feminist thing. Feminists don’t fall in love… with men.
In my case, being “tragically” heterosexual, I do, so my characters do too. Bah.
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Put it in the NOT A GOOD REVIEW folder – and never read it again. ;-)
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the characters are too dumb to live
That reviewer doesn’t get out much, does he/she/it? Walk through the seedier edges of most cities and you’ll see a WORLD of people just about too dumb to live. I haven’t read ANY of your books yet, though I’m looking for them (I don’t have an account with Baen, and I refuse to use a credit card). I got one of ‘those’ reviews from one of my books, and laughed my head off. Of COURSE he’s stupid — that was the whole point! In your case, I would assume the reviewer was looking for something to complain about, based upon their own prejudices. “Witchfinder” doesn’t do anything for me (not my cup of tea), but I LIKE this! It’s definitely on my “to look for” list — already.
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They’re also on Amazon — on paper.
Kyrie and Tom are 19 when the series starts. MOSTLY they’re dumb about how they feel about each other… which is er… par for the course.
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Baenebooks.com will take Certified Checks or Money Orders in US$. You can use them to buy MicroPay credit which is basically money on account with them you can use to buy ebooks later without having to enter a CC or Paypal account info. https://www.baenebooks.com/t-micropay.aspx has all the details.
Personally I haven’t used the check method but have used Micropay a number of times. I find it a handy way to use up those odd little gift ‘credit cards” you get from family or rebates without having to worry about how much is left on it. Just use the 25$ or what ever to buy credits to spend on crack, I mean ebooks later.
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I assume the emergency room doc saying, “oh, and…” was about to recommend Rabies shots. Do shifters get that?
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Call me lazy, call me dense, call me late for dinner, but it seems to me that, if this is a new entry in a series, links to other books prior to this one ought be provided, enabling indolent slackers to rouse from their lethargy to click a button and buy the books. Not click on a button to find out what the earlier books are called, click on a button and instruct Amazon (or other vendor) to take money from my account and give some of it to you and your publisher, along with other diverse hands involved in putting said books in shipping container(s) and instructing the appropriate delivery chain where to stick the package. Or to download it to an electronic reading application of my preference.
It seems to me that the less needed for me to buy stuff, then the more likely it is you will sell stuff. But whadda I know, eh?
Well, I do know that certain anal/retentive compulsive types won’t read a new book in a series unless they can get their beady little eyes on the prior books.
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well, this one is not ready. I wouldn’t post it if I weren’t half dead. Er… they’re only available from Baen Webscriptions
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What’s with the “er…”? I don’t know about the rest of the commenters, but I’m actually much more likely to buy a book if its from Baen than if it’s from Amazon – usually cheaper and, best of all, no DRM.
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Oops – I missed (such is the weight of my disappointment that no trees were killed in the production of those books) the critical element that you still HAVE YET TO PROVIDE THE NAMES OF THE BOOKS.
I am a busy busy lazy lazy person, especially for something in a format I am only middling willing to accept. Why make it any easier to resist the impulse to purchase?
Seriously EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR BOOKS should be linked for purchase in your sidebar or, failing that, on the Books page individually. And anytime you refer to one of your books you should include a link for buying (ideal) or at a minimum identifying the book, what series it is in (if any) what other books are in the series (if any) and, in short, everything you would find on the Other Books By This Bum page every publisher puts in, usually before starting the book itself.
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Cut her some slack, she’s still kinda sick. And the book titles are given above.
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RES
They’re listed under the “my books” tab. I could do a link on the side bar, but it would take you to my Amazon page, which has refused to recognize I am Elise Hyatt, possibly because the house refuses to confirm it, possibly because they don’t want me seeing the Nielsens (unless you have a better idea.) The fact that the copyright SAYS Sarah Hoyt is not enough for Amazon — and THAT is stupid — they need the publisher to confirm it.
There must be a way to do what you want, I just haven’t figured it out yet. I will, hopefully soon. (I also need to redo my website.) Unfortunately “soon” comes after writing, and then after house and yard duties (the later very demanding right now, because our house looks abandoned and because it’s the last summer I might have both boys home. Now, mind you NOTHING has got done exccept plans because of the stupid health, which is yet another wrinkle. And one i don’t like.)
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the er… is “I’m too lazy to look for the Amazon link” — actually I was starting to feel very, very ill and this morning I’m markedly, incredibly worse, and I’m only up and putting up a blog post because — d*mn it! — my body won’t be allowed to get away with this.
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ahhh… Heh- “my body won’t be allowed to get away with this” sounds rather like what we call a relative of mine’s “trying to wean the car off gasoline”. Take it easy, and I hope you feel better!
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Sorry to rag on a sick woman (and lady, I’ve read some of your books; you are sick, sick, sick — my kind of writer!)
But Marketing 101 dictates that inserting buy links whenever and however you can should be second nature. The harder you make it for potential customers to buy your work, the easier you make it for their wallets to stay shut.
As it happens, I already went Amazon and ordered both books on dead tree, HB, because while I am willing to entertain the idea of digital reading, the Beloved Spouse is even more resistant to E-Booking than am I, and BS is an even bigger fan of your fictioneering.
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OMG. You don’t want the HC of Draw One In The Dark. It has — according to Dave Drake, not just me — the worst cover Baen ever gave a book. Not only horrible looking, but totally inappropriate to the book on ALL fronts. Jim picked it when we think he was having a series of micro strokes. I don’t hold it against him — or Baen — but OMG, it’s atrocious!
And btw, that wasn’t an ESL error — can’t be. I don’t think in Portuguese and haven’t for… twenty seven? years — it was a “I can’t think straight” error.
“You should be in bed,” you’ll say. Yes, I should. Except we had fever sweats that soaked the mattress pad (sorry about icky TMI) so that’s in the wash and the bed is non operational for three or so hours. Absent that, my office chair is the most comfortable thing in the house, and I keep feeling I should be working. I’m going to put the thing in the dryer, and then come back. I WANT to sleep. (It’s about all I want to do, really.)
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It was the last book cover Jim every did before his death wasn’t it? I didn’t mind it but I was already a Baen fanatic that was preordering based off the buzz on Baen’s Bar. Anyways I usually only saw the spine when it was on the shelf or the inside while i was reading it so who cares what the cover was (and then i switched to ebooks where it matters even less)
You keep checking off the symptoms of the horrid flu we had 2 weeks ago. Horrid fever sweats and being so tired all day that its even hard to READ for more than a short while. I would apologize for giving it to you but i really doubt you can spread a Flu like a computer virus via the internet. :)
Vast Vats of Homemade Chicken Soup with lots of veggies I tell you! Even if it really isn’t a cure all at least its really yummy and comforting to eat while sick.
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Already made chicken soup, and yep it helps, and yep, it seems to be that flu. Oh, yeah, splitting headaches come and go.
Yes. It was the last book cover. The cover though made that book sell worse than ANY other book I’ve ever written/published, including the super seekrit one through the tiny micro “order only” publisher. Which unfortunately doomed the next’ book’s laydown, and is why the third book is so much later. We’ll see. If the space operas keep doing well, maybe Baen will reboot the series? (in the sense of bringing the first two books out as an omnibus or something.)
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Baen is good about the omnibus thing to keep a series going when the early books are out of print.
Toni and crew seem to be one of the only publishers i know about that work to grow an author over time and understand things like “That Cover” are NOT your fault.
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Yes. Any other house my career would have been dead. I was pretty upset because at the time I thought this was the best book I’d written. (And to that time it was. I rewrote DST before Toni published it, and it’s better now. And what I’ve written since was better but–) And it had to have the worst cover EVER.
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*does the ovo-lacto vegetarian wave* I was raised as ovo-lacto vegetarian. When I was little, it was all about “OHS NOES, THE POOR WIDDLE ANIMALS!” When I was older, I tried teenage rebellion and ate a little bit of chicken and hamburger and was proclaiming pepperoni (on pizza) to be a vegetable. But then older still… Meat tastes bad. I dunno why anyone eats it. But hey, if I don’t like it? More meat for the carnivores. Go enjoy your perverse pleasure. (I also wound up — and still do, often — doing things like cracking crab-claws for the kid, or cutting rib-meat from the bone for her. Won’t cook the stuff, though, except as frozen dinners with explicit instructions. If it’s all equally unappetizing to me, how can I know if it’s cooked well or badly? Or dangerously badly?)
When I was pregnant, meat smelled awful. As in, “I am already queasy and this is making it WORSE.” Fish, oddly, only smelled usually noxious to me. (And my life was complicated by having a cat at the time who was, truthfully, so stupid that she forgot dry cat food was edible. Any other cat, this would be an absolute con. This cat… really was that stupid. Sweet. But. Stupid. So I had to feed her canned cat food, which went from “ugh, smelly” in most cases to “…must…not…breathe…”)
My mom, on the other hand, is a carnivore; she was trying to do the ovo-lacto vegetarian thing and wound up sneaking hamburgers and devouring them in the closet.
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I wasn’t designed to be vegetarian. I swear my metabolism (almost typed it meatbolism) came straight from hunter-gatherer ancestors. I resent “perverse” — it’s perfectly natural. We’re omnivorous. If I ever develop problems with meat digestion I’ll be reduced to salads. You know what’s sad? I STILL won’t be skinny. (Sigh.)
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I will repeat it once again.
VEGETABLES ARE NOT FOOD! VEGETABLES ARE WHAT FOOD EATS!
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Baen doesn’t blame you for it, right? Which is yet one more reason they be princes among publishers.
On a side note, I will confess that most Baen covers do little for me, and many actively turn me off. I read their books for the authors, not the covers. But I am old and wise* enough to know that failing to attract me is merely failure to attract me and has nothing to do with the innate qualities of the books. My (or anybody else’s) liking or not liking of a thing is NOT an indicator of anything more than taste. “It ain’t fer me” is sufficient and does not require the support of “it ain’t no good.”
*For certain values of wise.
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Not only didn’t baen blame me for it, they gave me a better cover for the second book — though it still doesn’t signal UF, but then Baen does little UF, right?
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Toni even commissioned a completely new cover for the Paperback of the 1st book!
As for UF at Baen. Hmmm there is Mercedes Lackey’s urban elves/bards world, Wen Spenser’s Tinker series, and your Shifters books. That’s all I can think of at Baen in the last decade or so that is UF.
Larry’s Monster Hunters International series is more Action with B Movie Monsters than UF, but its really GOOD action with really fun B Movie monsters. :)
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YES. That’s what I meant to say. Not the next book, but the next edition. — sorry. I’m not… functioning very well.
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“Sick Food” in our household usually is ramen, with the broth HEAVILY seasoned with garlic & ginger. Garlic is a blood cleanser, ginger aids digestion and (most importantly) they both taste GOOD. The ramen provides system fuel and if you stir an egg into the broth you pick up protein. With only one pot to wash!
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I did chicken broth heavy on the garlic with celery root and tofu for the broth thickeners, and onion, carrots, zuchinni and spinach thrown in. It was responsible for two hours of “I’m fine” yesterday, so I think I’ll have a little bit for lunch, too.
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We do ramen too, but with chicken broth and garlic. I might even put some chicken into the broth to cook before adding the ramen. It is much easier to digest than noodles (in chicken noodle soup) and gets the belly warm, aids in hydration, etc.
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I live with two vegetarians – they don’t digest chicken therefore they don’t cook with chicken. Go figure.
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I have always wondered what vegetarians do for protein (needed for building muscles and other things). My father tried to get his whole family to become vegetarians but we rebelled. Thankfully we had chickens and we ate boiled eggs, while the parents were asleep. When I left home, my brothers used to go to friend’s houses to eat.
I craved protein for years. When I left home I balanced my meat eating with the vegetables.
And don’t tell me peanut butter – I hated peanut butter for years after it became our only protein choice as a kid.
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There are two basic categories of vegetarian: biological and philosophical. Philosophical considers meat = murder. Beloved Spouse — who will shortly catch up and explain how I have everything wrong ;-) — is biological, being unable to process meat efficiently, rendering it into noxious gaseous exhaust. Having spent time on a farm BS is of the opinion that slaughter for meat is the appropriate response to cattle and chickens and dearly wishes to be able to digest them.
Sources of protein include cheese (for non-Vegans) and other milk products, eggs (for non-Vegans), tofu-based products, beans & rice. Since the average adult only needs about 1/4 lb of protein daily the demands are not excessive.
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I had a friend in Charlotte who had this issue. Weirdly, in his later years, he got a bunch of other issues, but this ONE passed. He can now handle animal protein in little amounts.
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BTW I never asked my one vegetarian friend (she’s not one now *snort) because she got offended to easily.
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vegetarians because they have issues with meat is one thing. We were vegetarians for years because we were broke. In our case the protein was mostly tofu and dairy.. Also, because we lived in the Carolinas, occasionally fish.
But you know, Doctor Monkey (Dave Freer) says human bodies differ greatly in their requirements and what food they’ll take. As I get older I find that I have issues with carbs. I might or might not have issues with dairy (still under review) and I’m confined to meat and green veggies. Eh. Whatever works and keeps you healthy.
IMPOSING vegetarianism on CHILDREN though is wrong — they’ve found the human brain needs some amount of animal protein. Now, eggs or cheese work, but I know Vegans raising kids.
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Heh. We get … interesting … mail on account of subscribing to vegetarian magazine, Christian magazines (Touchstone, First Things), political magazines (Nat Review, Weakly Standard). MANY vegetarians are far Left politically, with the Vegans worst of all. It would be difficult for me to refute an argument that Vegans are brain-damaged and I can usually take any side of any argument you like.
It is amusing how many times you get fund-raising letters from both sides, each accusing the other of the same crimes & misdemeanors. Back a few decades we got letters from Teddy Kennedy and Jesse Helms that were remarkably similar (indeed, we often remarked on it.)
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But, you know, on the sick food thing — my issue with carbs (it makes my eczema really bad. ALL OVER my body. Trust me, it’s enough to make one give up carbs, truly. What carbs? Well… I have to go easy on carrots…) has robbed me of my utterly favorite sick food: PF Chang’s hot and sour soup and combination fried rice.
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I have had to quit eating cheese because it is one of my triggers for my migraines. I do really well with broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts (green again and good for kidneys). I have had to cut my protein because of the kidneys, but I still crave it if I don’t get enough. I feel better if I have meat even when they want me to cut it out of my diet. So I do believe you are right. My hubby is another meat-lover although he loves his salads too.
I can eat beans, but again if I only eat beans I still crave protein so go figure. ;-) I used to supplement by eating cheese– can’t now.
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Ah loves me some cruciferous vegetables!!! Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower (brussels sprouts, not so much: most methods of cooking them seem to overcook the exterior while undercooking the interior) are great, raw or lightly cooked (but please dear Lord: NO cheese sauces.)
Chinese cooking can be great this way, turning small quantities of meat into sumptuous feasts. Bell peppers, onions, broccoli, garlic, ginger and HOT pepper!!
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For the “cheese” allergy. Try eating WHITE cheese and see if that triggers the migraines as well.
Many yellow cheeses are colored with annatto and I know that can trigger migraines in some folks such as my Mother in Law.
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YES. My friend Charles who sometimes comments here has that issue. Also, try the more expensive traditionally made cheeses. You might still have issues, but you might not. Sometimes it’s some minor element in the preservative or process, not the cheese itself.
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I can endorse that. The more processed the cheese, the more likely I am to turn green after eating it.
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Very interesting RES – I agree with BS because I have lived on a farm too. Can you believe my father went VEGAN on a farm? lol
Anyway, it explains much. Interestingly I have noxious fumes to beans and other vegan type foods. Cheese is a trigger for my migraines. Tofu? I can only eat in small amounts. So I see why I need my protein in a more hunter/gatherer way. I can eat eggs though –and they saved me when I was on cytoxan and it was the only protein I could eat without a vomiting response.
I had not known there was a biological vegetarianism.
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for the record, the only strict vegans I know are the faith you were raised in. I don’t know why. I know tons of meat eaters of the same faith. Is it a break-away branch?
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Oh yea – I was reading (and saw on Dr. Oz) that coconut milk was good for most people. hey – it isn’t good for this person. I made a chowder with it. My hubby loved it. I loved it until four hours later when my stomach ejected it violently. lol
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String cheese can trigger my migrained. Tyramine is also a trigger (in aged cheeses). The only cheese I can eat safely is goat or feta cheeses.
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My family’s church thought my parent’s were weird. So no it wasn’t a church thing.
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interesting. Wonder if my vegan friends are considered odd too. They definitely connect it to religion, in their case… ODD. (Again you know, most of the people I know — and I have a lot of friends in the religion — when I ask them just go “Uh. WHAT?”)
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Sarah – my dad was in his early 40s when he started the Vegan thing. I look back and think that maybe he was having some health problems at the time. Of course, when dad (1970s) said we would eat one way, we ended up eating that way. I think he was having energy problems. Now my disease appeared when I was halfway through my fortieth year. I am a little more sympathetic to my dad after going through this health crisis. I just didn’t know what was going on – (in my early teens) and didn’t care of course.
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Other sources of protein include nuts. Almonds are one of the better ones. The problems with nuts, as with much dairy, is fat content. Among the grains quinoa is particularly good. Lentils are generally considered pretty easy to digest.
Now my idea of comfort food is not limited to Ramen. I am very partial to Palak or Saag Paneer, but I have not yet attempted to make Paneer on my own. (Paneer is a fresh Indian cheese, made by clabbering hot milk with lemon or lime juice and then draining and pressing. Kind of a relative of cottage cheese, I guess.)
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My maternal DNA is hunter/gatherer – I got proof ;-) I already know that I need meat to live – whether chicken, beef, goat, sheep, or fish. Love ’em all. In the animal world, the largest (heaviest) animals are vegetarians… at least in my humble opinion – manatees, elephants, even domestic animals. I have had venison, ostrich, and wildebeest. All good.
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Weirdly, when I was pregnant with Marshall I ONLY wanted fish and veggies. He’s still by and large like that.
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I have heard that it goes that way sometimes… (child craves and mother eats) … since I have not been pregnant I don’t have firsthand experience. I have helped my mother through most of her births (one of my brothers she would dig in the dirt for a certain clay to eat… that one was weird). My sisters haven’t had any really weird cravings except for the crunching ice thing.
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With Robert it was Greek Food. … It still is. BUT I LIKE Greek food! Fish…. I’m mehish on.
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I had a cousin who decided to be a vegetarian about the time she finished high school. Then she went to Africa with the Peace Corps for a couple of years. She came back a carnivore, according to her if you didn’t eat meat where she was, you didn’t eat.
She left a very prissy girl, she came back talking about eating giraffe and discussing the most efficient way to field dress a buffalo:) (which she still claims is the best meat there is, never having tried water buffalo I can’t dispute her)
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Ummm yes, water buffalo jerky is very tasty.
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So, what was the ‘super seekrit’ one (or is that a secret I’m not allowed to know?)?
I did notice out of the blue today that Amazon recommended Wings to me, and that is one I have never read, and didn’t recognize the publisher of.
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Wings is a collection of — 10? year old short stories. And Baen has the ebook cheaper — and no, part of the condition of selling it was super seekrit… (No, it’s not porn. I’ve written ONE erotica short story, never published. It’s about Chinese ghosts disrupting a honeymoon.)
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Eh (shrugs) I’m too old to judge a book by its cover beyond the obvious information (cues as to intended market, etc.) and ain’t buying it for the cover — dust jackets can be removed, nicht wahr?
And I knew your “error” was colloquialism rather than ESL, but there was nothing else upon which to play a poor prank of perfectly punctilious pedantic pontification, poking you politely, one pal to another. (Yes, I read far too much Stan Lee as a youth. Not the worst of my flaws.)
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Momma taught me not to judge a book by its cover.
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Good. This one is SO bad that I didn’t want to be in the same room with it. we did do stuff to it to make t-shirts, and we still have some of those, so if you like the book, let me know, I’ll fling a t-shirt that way. ;) (They’re almost cute, really, and besides there’s collector’s value.)
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It is indeed the most horrid cover I have ever seen from Baen. I read Baen books, but most of the covers that Jim approved left me “meh.” This cover, on the other hand, meant that I had to remove the cover. It was awful and distracting. Cover is still safely set by, somewhere. Book is in the “reread more than once” shelf.
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At your request, RES, I hereby call you lazy, dense, late for dinner, and as an added bonus, Shirley. :) Also, here are the links to the other books in the series:
Draw One in the Dark
http://www.baenebooks.com/p-114-draw-one-in-the-dark.aspx
Gentleman Takes a Chance
http://www.baenebooks.com/p-826-gentleman-takes-a-chance.aspx
Go forth and spend money, O minions of Hoyt!
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At your request, RES, I hereby call you lazy, dense, late for dinner, and as an added bonus, Shirley. Also, here are the links to the other books in the series:
Draw One in the Dark
http://www.baenebooks.com/p-114-draw-one-in-the-dark.aspx
Gentleman Takes a Chance
http://www.baenebooks.com/p-826-gentleman-takes-a-chance.aspx
Go forth and spend money, O minions of Hoyt!
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Illness cuts much slack, but no dead tree versions??? Sigh – I own an E-Reader but am too buried in dead trees to actually use it.
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Here…
http://shifters.sarahahoyt.com/
Draw One In the Dark
Gentleman Takes a Chance
Noah’s Boy (forthcoming, apparently)
Both are available from Amazon in paper. But you really should try ebooks… come to the digital side!
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I understand Draw One In The Dark is out of print.
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There are still some new ones listed here http://www.amazon.com/Draw-One-Dark-Sarah-Hoyt/dp/1416520929
But I think you are right about it being out of print. Otherwise, why would a mass market paperback be $30?
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Coming to this late I hope you are all starting to feel better. And thank you for the teaser even though it does re-ignite the impatient anticipation. It might cheer you up to know that Portugal redeemed themselves in the Euro Football championship yesterday. They beat Holland 2-1 and thus qualified for the quarter finals. And Cristiano Ronaldo also redeemed himself by scoring both goals.
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