After a summer of writing (and a third of the fall), I've finished enough of my current WIP to submit it as a 4-part series.  There's something about committing to let someone else judge my work that gives me a terrifying, exhilarating adrenaline rush.

The story is called "Servant of the Seasons."  Edor is an architect driven from his safe, ordered dome into the wilderness of a post-apocalyptic landscape, a landscape of dead land, desperate people, and mysterious gangs of Salters that terrorize the population.

I have a new review up over at Speak Its Name.  

This one looks at Virginia Bedfellows by Gavin Morris.  I was attracted to the book because of its setting in Colonial America, a time/place seldom treated in homoerotic fiction.  The book isn't perfect, but I find I'm more forgiving of flaws in character or story in historical fiction.  Of course, that's only true where the historical integrity is strong, as it is in Morris's novel.

I'm in the planning stages of a novel about early-contact to be set in Canada.  I was inspired by something I read about adolescent European boys sent to live among indigenous peoples near the British Jamestown settlement and also by Samuel de Champlain in New France.  These boys were to learn the language and customs of the Indians to better serve the colonial enterprises, but the unintended consequence was often that the boy translators' allegiances shifted to their Indian hosts.  

As I've set about research I find myself more and more intimidated by the rigors of historical research, and more in awe of (good) historical novelists than ever before.  Also, as I've tweaked reality and filled in gaps in documentary evidence (capital offenses among "real" historians), I realize just how dangerous it is for a writer of fiction to use other fiction as the basis for historical research.  I'd love to hear others' thoughts on the matter!

Cheers,
Lee