It’s the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat. And it’s all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to show itself.
It’s been two months since a myriad of alien objects clenched about the Earth, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been silent since – until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us. Who to send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn’t want to meet?
When Auntie Catherine warns the family of an approaching asteroid, the Gales scramble to keep humans from going the way of the dinosaurs. Fortunately for the world, they’re wielding a guitar and a dragon.
The Gale family can change the world with the charms they cast, which has caused some supernaturally complicated family shenanigans in the past. So when NASA and Doomsday Dan confirm Auntie Catherine’s dire prediction, Charlotte “Charlie” Gale turns to the family for help.
It’s 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. “Confused today,” read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know-what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don’t seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead.
“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”
I keep meaning to update with what I’ve been up to but my mind has been jumbled all over the place. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from knitting, and trying to get in a little spinning each week. The biggest difference is that I’ve been doing more reading and writing.
Yes, writing. Just not on the blog. Ouch.
I mentioned previously that I’m trying to do more fiction-reading. I’ve been fairly successful at that. Here’s the most recent picture of the stack o’books:
We went window-shopping at The Mall this weekend and I had a chance to stop in at Indigo. I came out with Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I’d heard good things about it online.
I devoured it in one day.
Koigu is not only a yarn that’s fun to knit, but the name is fun to say too. I was really pleased to find out that it was a Canadian company…according to their website, they are based out of the Georgian Bay area in Ontario. I recently finished a pair of socks using Koigu. I […]
I think I may have a problem. I have this compulsion….a compulsion to try out different brands of knitting needles when I find a name that’s new to me. When one of my local yarn stores started selling Chiaogoo needles, I had to have a pair. Why? Because they’re mainly bamboo, and you never know […]
I am of the opinion that while men will wear atypically-coloured or textured socks, most men prefer relatively conservative socks that wear well. I would like to think that I’m relatively well-qualified to make that statement, considering I regularly knit socks for my significant other, and have been known to knit for our respective Dads. […]