Glenda Larke

There has been one copy of Havenstar on sale at Amazon.com for ages now, not surprising seeing as the price was a colossal $US 107 for a paperback. (See my remarks on Feb 19th ). The sales ranking was well over one million.

Well, the darn thing has sold. The sales ranking is now 300,000 plus, and there are no more on sale – and my bottom jaw is down near my knees somewhere. Someone paid $107 for a book of mine? I am beginning to eye my two copies and wonder…

I have a busy couple of weeks ahead. I have just received editorial feedback for my latest submission – the second book of The Mirage Makers trilogy. A prologue to be written and a few tweaks to be made (I am utterly delighted that there was so few) and two weeks before the manuscript should be back at HarperCollins.

The book is called Exaltarch and has proved to be one of the hardest books I’ve ever had to write. I ended up doing a number of very major rewrites – I reckon I must have turfed at least 50,000 words along the way, possibly more! Somehow the structure would not come right at first – while the deadline passed further and further into the past, but it seems I finally nailed it as I now have a happy editor.

Now, as I do the sprucing up suggested, I am at that wondrous stage when I finally begin to think, “Hey! This is not too bad after all!”

And then there’s the raptor watch coming up. I shall be spending a number of days sitting at a lighthouse on a Cape, watching over the Straits of Malacca for the arrival of the honey-buzzards, bee-eaters, swifts, bazas, sparrowhawks and such. We are doing a count. If we get bored because nothing is coming in, then we can look straight down onto a coral reef and watch the turtles. Or I can write, laptop on my knee… I can think of worse ways to spend a few days! I’ll even get some exercise: to get to the lighthouse there is a very steep walk through the rainforest.

When the birds do arrive, of course the two of us counters will be busy – counting and identifying.

I find the whole event amazingly moving. These birds choose this spot to cross the straits because it is the narrowest point between Indonesia and Peninsular Malaysia. This is particularly important to the larger raptors – they need thermals to travel long distances because their weight to wingspan ratio is such that they tire easily if they have to flap over long distances. And you don’t get thermals over water.

As they approach the lighthouse, they are exhausted. If the wind conditions aren’t good, you can actually see them panting as they struggle the last few metres – and then they hit the rising warm air over the land, they stop their flapping and gradually rise as they circle… maybe I just imagine the look of relief on their faces. And they still have thousands of miles to go.

Yesterday I was preparing material for a total revamp of my website, and as I ran through a slew of past reviews, I was amazed to see how many compared aspects of my writing to other writers, all much better known. An embarrassment of riches, in fact.

I remember the very first time this happened. Not a reviewer, but the editor of a sff imprint in the UK who read a couple of my books and turned them down, told my agent my writing reminded her of Sherri Tepper. Being a lover of much of Ms Tepper’s work (although as far as I know, not a copycat!), I thought that was an enormous compliment. But note -– I was rejected.

So I learned a lesson: one should take such compliments as pretty meaningless.

My second lesson down that road was when the editor of my first book compared me, in a press release I think, to Ursula LeGuin. A reviewer then shot back -– quite rightly too – with something along the lines of, ‘Hey this is an enjoyable book, but LeGuin? You’’ve got to be kidding!‘’ Which was nicely deflating to any pretensions my ego might have considered developing.

Oddly enough, two other reviewers have mentioned my work in the same breath as LeGuin, but I think that was simply because my first trilogy was set in an archipelago. So there you are, if you want to be compared to the master of fantasy writing, use a string of islands as a setting!

Another author I seem to bring to mind (3 reviews) is Lois McMaster Bujold. That is apparently because of my strong female characters. Stephen Donaldson has cropped up twice, once from that that same first editor (a really over-optimistic fellow, I think), and the second comparing the emotional torture I subjected my hero to as being something Donaldson would be proud of. I liked that comparison, I must admit.

Other writers who have been mentioned are Mercedes Lackey (strong heroines again), and (one I just love) my books being ‘written with self-assurance, insight and guts – much tradition of Robin Hobb, Carol Berg and even Elizabeth Moon.’ (If ever I meet the gentleman who wrote that, I shall buy him dinner at the very least.)

Now if only all that was true. I suspect, though, that I just write like me.

What I am looking forward to is the day that someone says, ‘New author Aloysius Muddlesworthy has written a book in the tradition of Glenda Larke…’”

Then I will know that I have really made it!!

After four days of teeth-grinding frustration trying to make an online booking to New York, I made a second attempt at a local travel agent – the only one in my area registered for the ongoing MAS cheap travel fair.

I walked in and was utterly delighted to find that this time, yes, they could give me the dates I wanted at a price I thought was brilliant, considering what else I had been offered. I didn’t even think about it. “I’ll take it,” I said. I couldn’t believe my luck. Huh. I might have known it was too good to be true. When it comes to getting to New York cheap, I am jinxed. Or maybe I should reword that: I am a jinx.

Immediately after I said “I’ll take it” – words with far reaching consequences when uttered by the magically jinxed – every piece of electronic equipment in the agency blew up. That was, need I say, before my purchase was entered into the system.

I kid you not. The lights went out. Computers, monitors, fax machines and printers all went “PHHHUTTT!!” and smoke poured out of everything. I left before anyone found out I was to blame.

I decided to take Liz’s advice, and off I went to the central railway station where there is a MAS office. I decided to avoid the KL traffic horror by catching the commuter train. So I stuffed my copy of The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl into my bag and off I went.

I sat on the station and watched several trains going the other way on the other side of the tracks – but nothing going to KL. The electronic sign above my head uttered a continuous stream of make-believe : (train due in 6 minutes …5 …4 …3 …2 …1 …30 …) Finally, just when it seemed no more people could fit on the platform, a train did appear. On the other side of the tracks, but going to KL. It horned. A hundred or so people exchanged glances and wondered whether we were supposed to cross the overhead bridge and risk getting on to a train going north on the southbound line…

Anyway, there we all are on a train, going the right way but on the wrong tracks, packed in like brown rice in a vacuum pack – when it becomes increasingly obvious that the aircon is not working. And there’s no way to open any windows. It is just past midday in the tropics. And I am reading a book that vividly describes various ways of being murdered a la Dante’s Inferno. Talk about surreal.

It is two hours later by the time I finally arrive at my turn at the MAS desk. And was there any sign of that cheap seat the travel agent had mentioned? Nope, of course not. In the end I was just so tired of wasting so much time on this whole booking thingy, that I bought a ticket (supposedly bargain price) which was just $RM 52.00 cheaper than the regular economy MAS fare. At least the computers didn’t blow up.

I am going to New York. Well, to Virginia actually. To see the little guy above. And I refuse to think how much I am paying to do so…I am sure he will be worth it.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, my great-grandparents set sail from England and Ireland, seeking a better life in Australia. They had no guarantees that they would ever arrive, let alone ever go back again.

Photo by Lim Kim Chye & Yian

Every year millions of birds make a journey that is even more dangerous and uncertain. They aren’t driven by despair or hope, as my ancestors probably were, but by instinct — and they have even less chance than my great grandparents had of making it safely. Some estimates say that fifty percent of migratory birds on their first round trip don’t get back again to the place where they are born.

Poverty made my ancestors take the risk; migratory birds don’t really have a choice. From the moment of birth they are programmed to take that journey repeatedly. So why has nature inserted a programme so inherently risky into their genes? It’s fairly obvious why they leave their birthplace — it gets too darn cold and food resources vanish. But why, once they are enjoying the balminess of tropical forests, do they go north again? It doesn’t get cold here, the food doesn’t suddenly disappear; why not stay, nest, and forget about that dangerous trip back?

The individual bird, of course, doesn’t have a choice. His instincts tell him to get going and he goes…but nature does things for a reason. In this case, the abundance of nutritious, high-protein food in the short summers of the north makes the journey worth the risk. If he stayed here, he would be in competition with the locals — who would be feeding hungry youngsters too.

The simple truth, then, is that for the species as a whole, the benefits outweigh the risks, and the kids profit. Probably my ancestors thought along the same lines, although in more personal terms. (Risk-taking worked for them, I’m happy to say!)

Over the next couple of weeks you are going to see me writing a lot on this subject – because our local Raptor Watch is coming around again, organised by the Malaysian Nature Society.

If you are in Malaysia, make a date to be in at Cape Rachado (Tanjung Tuan) on the 4^th and/or 5^th March down in Malacca (Melaka), just south of Port Dickson. Look this website for more info: www.raptorwatch.org

Or watch this space.