Hi Piers

Jamboree 2025

HI–

I read Calvin and Hobbes, the newspaper comic strip, 1987 edition. Over the decades when I had newspaper subscriptions, my favorite comics were Pogo, Curtis. Rose is Rose, and Calvin and Hobbes, because of their superior imagination. I’m a fan of imagination, as fans of my novels may have caught on. Eventually I hope to get the whole of their book editions so that I can enjoy what I have missed. Now I am more limited, as I lost the newspapers when I moved from Florida to California and am largely out of touch. No, I can’t get a daily newspaper delivered to my door; I live in a secure apartment building where everything is locked, and papers left outside risk getting stolen. So here are some of my reactions to this one year, which MaryLee gave me for Christmas. For those who are not familiar with this strip, Calvin is a naughty six year old boy with a tiger doll called Hobbes his imagination animates into a real tiger, or at least his impression of one. Hobbes is twice as tall as Calvin and can talk, and may be smarter than Calvin with a more mature perspective. Other people, being ignorant, see only the silent doll. You know how it is. Okay, with a year’s worth of strips that mostly stand by themselves, I am going to mention only samples. In the first strip Calvin tells his dad that he has rigged a tiger trap with a tuna fish sandwich as bait, as a tiger will do anything for such a sandwich. Dad doesn’t take it seriously. In the final picture, Hobbes is dangling from a tree branch by one foot, caught as he eats the sandwich. “We’re kind of stupid that way,” he explains. Another strip has Calvin and Hobbes on Calvin’s bed. Calvin calls “Any monsters under my bed tonight?” His parents of course have assured him that there are none. Parents never believe in monsters under the bed; it’s one of the things that makes childhood so difficult. Ask any child. From under the bed come voices “Nope,” “No,” “Uh-uh.” Calvin says “Well, there’d better not be. I’d hate to have to torch one with my flame thrower!” Hobbes asks “You have a flame thrower??” Calvin replies “They lie. I lie.” He knows how to handle them. Smart kids do. In another strip Calvin says to Hobbes “There’s a new girl in our class.” Hobbes asks “Well! What’s her name?” “Who knows?” “Is she nice?” “Who cares? Not me.” “Do you like her?” “NO!” Hobbes is canny about Calvin’s attitudes. Next strip. “Here comes that new girl.” Then Calvin calls “Hey, Susie Derkins. Is that your face, or is a possum stuck in your collar? I hope you suffer a debilitating brain aneurysm, you freak!” And Hobbes says “She’s cute, isn’t she?” “Go away.” Hobbes knows. Thus commences the romantic aspect. For the record, Susie is cute, and soon savvy about Calvin. Another strip shows Calvin sick at home, in bed watching TV. “Oh, Mary, you look ravishing in that skimpy negligee!” Kiss, kiss. “Mmm…Darling, don’t you wish we were married?” “But we are! … or do you mean to each other?” “I’ve got to have you! Let’s murder our spouses!” “Murder? You sick animal. I love it when you talk that way! Come here.” And Calvin says “Sometimes I think I learn more when I stay home from school.” Yes, children have ways of getting around parental restrictions. Another: Mom is bawling out Dad. “It’s your fault we didn’t have a sweet little girl! Your stupid chromosome!! Not mine!!” She stomps off. He mutters “… I just live here.” Yes, my wife Carol and I had the wit to have girls. They’re not as violent as boys, but they have their moments, as Susie shows. Parenting can be a challenge. And: Susie calls “Calvin, you baloney brain! Yousent me a hate-mail valentine and a crummy bunch of dead flowers! So here’s a Valentine for you, you insensitive clod!!” And she hits him with a snowball in the face. Then she faces away and thinks “A Valentine and flowers! He likes me.” With two little hearts. While he is thinking “She noticed! She likes me!” With one little heart. Who says children don’t like romance? Read it yourself and learn.

 I read the first part of Three Divine Children, by Daniel Christopher June, whose novels I have reviewed in these columns before. I gather he wrote a fantasy novel for each of his children, and has self published them as a trio in this volume. The first one is The Natamyths, which is about Wendy. For eternities she existed, dreaming up millions of stars, moons, people, songs, and joys. At last she decided that she could love herself more fully by loving another. So she split into two, the Allmothter, and the Allfather. Allmother became theplanets and moons. Allfather became suns and stars. They got together and made Natalie the Godchild. In due course Natalie filled a worthy widow. who birthed the child Wendy. But Wendy was full of questions. So she visited a number of authorities to get answers. The first was the Bleeding Man, who was dressed in an uncomfortably scratchy suit. Unsatisfied with his answers, she went on to the Caterpillar Girl. But she did not get the answers she sought there, so she sewed a special red dress, put it on, and from its sleeves two shimmering wings unfurled. Now she can fly! She goes to the temple that holds the statue of the face of the Goddess. In it was a sign that read “The Face of the Goddess.” It stood above a still pool of water. She looked in the water and saw her own reflection. It was her! She flew home, but avoided flying when others were watching, lest they demand that she sew them similar flying dresses. She went to school, and the teacher told her that life was not about having fun, but being responsible. But Wendy thought that the joy in being alive was in creativity. Then she met the Mirror Girl, Mira, whose eyes were two perfect mirrors; she was blind. Wendy goes on to meet the man in the tornado. And others, always learning new things. She learns to play a magic silver flute that can stir the elements around it when played with emotion. She quests for wisdom, concluding with the Sphinx, whom she riddles back. The main message is that freedom is more important than force. She travels with her friend Wolf Boy, and they grow up together, eventually becoming romantic. Meanwhile her family thinks she has died, but she is able to reassure them. We are ready for the story of her sister Emilie. This is a highly imaginative story of the type that typical editors who claim to want imagination don’t understand. That may be why it had to be self published. Those of us who do have imagination have a chronic battle with the forces of darkness, I mean, the standard publishing system that seems to prefer variants on last year’s bestsellers to actual imagination. Ever thus.

 The second novel of the trilogy is The Emilegends, about Emilie Arianna, the second child. This is a step less gentle than the first. While still orienting on childhood. Emilie started as a beam of light, the result of mingling of the sun and moon, that got mixed up with four pumpkin seeds, the fourth of which got confused for a valuable coin. This had its own adventures, finally getting planted by a poor farmer. It grew a fine pumpkin, inside of which was the baby Emilie, who thus became the farmer’s daughter. She has golden hair and a golden laugh. Did I mention imagination? Emilie gets a guitar and slowly learns to play it. A unicorn named Justice befriends her. She learns to ride him, and they become best friends. She finds a conch that glows when she sings. But a blue haired mermaid claims it. Emilie trades a mirror for it, and the mermaid departs, satisfied. Meanwhile Justice becomes Emilie’s best friend, who carries her and protects her. But she is willful, and it’s hard for him to keep her safe. He dips his horn in water she insists on drinking, curing it of all poisons, it is water of DESIRE that causes mischief of another nature. Emilie finds a skull, which turns out to belong to Martha, a ghost, who becomes another friend. Then Emilie fetches an Apple of Youth, which may do something strange to one who is already young. But the Water of Desire made her hunger for it. Did I mention imagination? She eats the apple, and it enables her to understand the language of the birds. I trust this is enough to show the originality of this story; maybe the author drank some of that water and ate some of that apple. Emilie attends a special school and makes new friends. Time passes and she becomes a woman, as girls do; it’s a magical process. The story complicates, and she winds up sacrificing everything to save the prince she loves, even to the extent of agreeing to marry his enemy. But a friend saves her by cutting off her ring finger as the enemy drops to likely death, freeing her to marry Haldolph, the prince she loves. A wild and ugly finale, but Emilie should be happy. Again, not standard fantasy.

 The third novel is The Therontales. Mighty hunter Samsoar spies a beautiful deer, and knows she is immortal, and if he eats her flesh he’ll be immortal too. But she reads his thoughts and vanishes into the enchanted woods. He chases her there for five years, unable to hunt anything else, living on roots and nuts, becoming a vegetarian. Thus he remains another five years. Then the doe approaches him, changing form to a beautifulgoddess clothed in white. “I love you,” she says, “and would show you love.” He names her Niviana, marries her, and in due course their child is named Theron. She remains a year, nursing Theron, then vanishes. When Thereon is old enough to learn about his mother, he vows to learn everything, find her, and know her face to face. Thus commences his adventure. Meanwhile his father found a heart shaped pendant, inside of which was a picture of a woman, Sharon. He fell instantly in love, searched her out, and married her. Thus she became Theron’s stepmother. Later his father got sick. Theron went out and slew a dragon, and returned home to learn that his father had died. He and Sharon were grief-stricken, but could not change it. At age 18 he set out to find his mother, having no idea where to go. He promptly gets lost, and finds an enchanted forest where there is a woman named Dewma,the red witch, with dark hair reaching to her ankles, dressed in red. She becomes Tulifara, and declares she loves him. He desires her above all else. They are about to make love when she says “Call me mother.” What? Theron flees, taking along a young lion he encounters, Gladdus. When he collapses, the lion takes care of him. Gladdus had lost his mother, so they have that in common. They are friends, and travel together. When they hunt deer, the deer attack them, and Theron is knocked out. He wakes in a house run by the Red Witch, only she wears green and runs with the deer. She is Sylvia, Dewma’s sister, a goddess of virginity. She joins them, as does a doe deer, Dulciana. Theron and Sylvia get caught in a cave, and it takes them a week to find their way out of it. By then they are in love, and agree to marry, though they are quite different types. Her virginity and vegetarianism will be sacrificed; love conquers all. Until a demon stabs her to death. Until Luciana intervenes and restores her to life. There is more, revelations and surprises, winding into a complex tapestry of conclusion, but I trust this shows the intricacies of this novel, this trilogy. Yes, I believe it deserves standard publication. Ignorant critics may condemn it, but that’s a signal of originality. Things have been up in a heaval here, with distractions like my writing Xanth #51 Fusia’s Friends, and the horrendous fires in the area, and MaryLee’s illness. The novel is writ, the fires wiped out a friend, and MaryLee has not yet mended. My favorite magazines are NEW SCIENTIST and THE WEEK, and I normally comment on items of interest in them. But the subscriptions seem to have lapsed and we haven’t yet navigated the complexities of changing the mailing address since we moved to California, so what I have are a pile of old issues. We will see about making new subscriptions at our present address, bypassing their seeming reluctance to update their records. Meanwhile I will go through the old issues I have, trying to catch up before I start writing Xanth #52. eventually I hope to catch up on everything, assuming fans are interested.

 THE WEEK December 8, 2023. Yes, over a year old, I’ll skip much of it, focusing on items still of interest. The Editor’s Letter asks “How many voters know that Trump is echoing Hitler and Mussolini in vowing to eliminate the ‘vermin’ who’ve dared oppose him?” Well, we’ll see, as Trump is now in power. Article on Open AI says “The chaos at OpenAI has highlighted the insanity of leaving AI’s safe development to a handful of secretive, feuding tech execs.” Again, we’ll see. In the “Only in America” category: “A Catholic health network in the Midwest is removing crucifixes from the walls of its hospitals to stop patients using them as weapons.” In two states, Virginia and Oregon, the courts are overturning gun controls. So which would you rather be attacked by, a crucifix or a gun? In Jackson, Mississippi, a Black man, Dexter Wade, was crossing Interstate 55 when he was struck dead by a police SUV and buried anonymously off a dirt road. City officials denied there was any police misconduct. Opinions might differ there. Former child star LeAnn Rimes sued, alleging that $7 million had been stolen by her father. The two have since reconciled. Are people going to be able to have sex in the space station? We may find out in due course. “The world’s richest 1 percent of people are responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the 5 billion people in the poorest 66 percent, according to a new Oxfam report.” In the Wit & Wisdom category: “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” Nietzsche. “Over the past year, more than 80,000 Americans died of Covid—more than eight times the number that died from the flu.” Remember, they’retalking about the year 2023. Global warming continues. “Based on what science tells us, this is just like a whisper. What will be in the future will be more like a roar.” One advantage of being age 90, I probably won’t be alive to hear that roar. You younger folk will be. Maybe a hint is the discovery of a Jupiter sized planet in the constellation Virgo that whips around its star in less that a week and rains sand, which evaporates back to form clouds. 10,000 mph winds. Enjoy the warm breeze, folk.