Out of the Debauched Sloth
Chaz Brenchley's Fortnightly Newsletter
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” (William Cowper, almost)
I let you down a fortnight since,
I know. I sent no letter.
So here I sit, and this is writ,
In hopes of doing better.
Why did you get no newsletter two weeks ago, you ask? Because our cleaners were on holiday, and what I had long suspected was made manifest, viz that I need that incentive to drive me out to the clubhouse that I may write these missives. I was always a rotten correspondent. Schedule*—this particular schedule**—is essential; when it breaks, I break. I broke.
Why no, of course I couldn’t just wander out to the clubhouse of my own free will, what are you thinking? And also no, I couldn’t conceivably write a newsletter in my study instead, let’s get real here.
It was a bad one to miss, too, because I had Actual Book Out. Not its first appearance, but definitely its prettiest, outside and inside too. THE DEVIL IN THE DUST is the first volume of my Outremer series, historical fantasy featuring a gentle twist on the Crusader States: knights and squires, runaway girls, djinn and ’ifrit, fanatical priests, war on every front, charismatic leaders, arranged marriages, love at first sight, deserts and camels and culture-shock, my trademark fey boys and sensible girls, incomprehensible magics, a vanished land and a vanquished land, mysterious juggling jongleurs, gay sex and virginity and oh, so much more.
Here’s the book’s page at Wizard’s Tower Press, where you will find links to all the main sales outlets in all the formats (or you can always order it from your friendly neighbourhood bookstore, of course. Speak to them nicely, they might even order in an extra copy for themselves).
For those of you more interested in the adventures of British schoolgirls in the 1930s on Mars (and this is Old Mars, of course, with atmosphere and canals and aliens and all), Amazon UK is currently selling the paperback of THREE TWINS AT THE CRATER SCHOOL at a quarter off, while the hardback is 40% off, and thus barely more expensive than the paperback. Hurry, hurry: these prices will not last. Again, here’s the book’s page at WTP with all the links.
Otherwise, not much to tell: I’m halfway through writing too many things at once (the latest Crater School chapter, which will go immediately to my Patreon subscribers when it’s ready; Stalky & Co, but also on Mars; an unrelated fantasy notion; and more, much more), so of course I am finishing nothing, which is always depressing. I have been very much in my head this last month, and right now that’s a fairly uncomfortable place to be.
Never mind. I have also been out in the garden a lot, which is a lovely place to be, in springtime in California. This last week, I have potted on ten tomatoes and nineteen superhot peppers, half a dozen basils, a teeny tiny curry-leaf seedling and more besides. I’m mostly growing things in pots this year, because my vegetable beds are infected with a tomato fungus that wrought havoc on last year’s crops. I’d intended to leave them entirely fallow this season and focus on soil improvement—buuut then I came home with some balsam camellias and an Asian variety of lettuce and...
Spring: it’s hard on the pocket, but oh so good for the soul.
Here’s my favourite rose, Julia Child:
’Til a fortnight’s time, people.
- Chaz
* Remember, you’re reading me in an English accent; that “Sch” is soft, ’k?
** So’s that one, yup.