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Book Review: Mind of My Mind (The Patternist Series)

Erin Penn

Book Cover from Amazon

Mind of My Mind (The Patternist Series) by Octavia E. Butler

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

The baby’s name is Mary, and her father is immortal. For thousands of years he has orchestrated a selective breeding project, attempting to create a master race capable of controlling others through thought. Most of his attempts have resulted in volatile mutations, but Mary—whom he has raised in the rough part of a Southern California town—is the closest he has come to perfection. If he doesn’t handle her carefully, this greatest experiment will be his last.
 

As Mary comes of age, she begins to grow aware of her psychic powers. And when she learns of her father’s plans for her, she refuses to acquiesce. She challenges him to a psychic war, battling to free her people and set a new course for mankind.

Multiple Nebula and Hugo award–winning author Octavia Butler’s epic and thought-provoking Patternist series has fascinated generations of readers, exploring the effects of power and what it means to be human.

MY REVIEW

I asked my friends to recommend someone new and got “Octavia Butler” at the top of the list.

I can see why in this example of her writing. A very cool Gestalt psi story along the lines of Theodore Sturgeon’s More than Human (a personal favorite of my childhood – I guess I should book review that too – look for it in March).

The story is coming-of-age of an immortal trying to breed his equals. Problem is “daddy” is a tyrant and his children have been socialized to think his actions are normal. Now they ready to grow up and daddy isn’t ready to let go. 

Flash: The Archer (Part 1) – The Action

Erin Penn

Image from freedigitalphotos.net

 

The archer stopped just past the bus’ commuter card swipe. So this is what humanity has come to. They who challenged the gods. They who ripped deity from Olympus and claimed equality.

 

They who discovered the great burden divinity carries. To be responsible for oneself and others. Not a single face carried joy. Those by the dirty windows watched the grey world with defeat. Those in the middle seats fixed their eyes on the floor and bore holes to Hades’ realm. Reaching back to pull two arrows from his quiver, he compared what he saw with Charon’s passengers. Charon’s clients appeared more animated.

 

He had toyed with the thought of not following through with Lachesis’ request. After all, humans had pushed them away. But the Fate was right, even when the worshippers leave their gods, their gods cannot forsake their worshippers.

 

“I have a chance to add some brilliant color to the tapestry.” The Moirai had said when she had tracked him down in the marble halls. “If these two threads can just be twisted together, they will brighten a whole segment.”

 

She had played with the strands until they would be side-by-side for a moment and asked him if he could fix them together. He had agreed … for a favor. A favor from a being older than the Titians is something to be seized whenever possible.

 

The male Lachesis had manipulated came beside the empty bus seat and turned his head to examine the window seat occupant. The arrow’s shaft rested against the ash wood for only a second before its whistling release. No one noticed the missile’s flight or its piercing of the man’s back.

 

The archer had asked Lachesis what would happen if he did not bond the threads. With her typical pragmatic temperament, “Together the brown threads take on the Iris’ hues and bring attention to the colors around them. But separately … brown threads abound. My sister will need to cut one shortly, likely both.”

 

The seated woman raised her head from something the man was asking. A miracle as far as the archer was concerned. No one on the conveyance looked anyone else in the eye and his magic required eye contact.

 

Eros quickly loosed his second arrow and watched in satisfaction as it buried itself in the woman’s heart. Everything else is up to the would-be-gods. May they and others like them return the gift one day.

 

(words 405; first published 12/5/2012; republished 2/3/2019)

Blog: Everyone Can Write

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of ifunny.com

BMI Music License has the following ad campaign to encourage people to pay for licensing:

IF MUSIC WERE MEANT TO BE FREE
All Of Us Could Write It.

The point of the campaign is to get their artists paid so they have the ability to make more music we all enjoy.

While I agree with their intent, I am going to disagree with the actual statement. Everyone can write music, make music, draw, or – for my purposes of this blog – write fiction and non-fiction.

Not everyone can do it well.

Think. Every child sings and bangs on pans. They try to whistle and come up with jokes. They fib creating their first stories and draw pictures for the refrigerator. As adults, we’ve all listen to someone tell a story … badly, sing happy birthday off-key, looked at photos and selfies which scared us, and read memos with only passing resemble to the English grammar structure.

That is the free stuff. Children (and students of all ages)  learning if they can do an art (or sports or science or whatever their talents turn out to be). 

The children grow, the students get better – working on their art in all their free time – until, at last – the stuff they make SHOULDN’T be free. Because they are devoting their lives to it – they are spending their time testing, learning, and becoming better. The art – audio, visual, or written – is their day job. If a person needs to spend four to six hours a day – every day – on something, to create the things other people want to hear, see, or read – well then, they need to be paid for the things being created so they have those four to six hours a day to devote to the craft instead having their time devoted to, say, working as a cashier.

And that is what we pay for when we buy books instead of pirate them, pay for licensed music to enhance our videos instead of “borrow”, or any other means to send money toward the artist. We are paying for (1) talent and (2) practice to get and remain good.

Because remember … not everyone can do it well.

If you want someone to do it well on a continuing basis, they need to be paid for it.

With luck the person can find a patron. Historically royalty would support various artists: composers, portraiture painters, and calligraphy houses. The results produced were shared with entire nations and prosperity.

Now-a-days we call it “an audience”, buying the art in a commercial setting. 

(ASIDE: Or Patreon.com – where individuals can be sign up to support artists they love. I’ve picked up a vlogger, a couple webcomics artists, and an author to support. Why? Because I love their stuff and I want them to make more.)

In the meantime, remember music is free – ask any child to play pots and pans for you. Fictional writing is free – just read the last political tweet.

Good music … good writing … pay for it so the artist can make more.

(That includes me – go to my books section. I get the most benefit from my personal stuff. But under the “things I’ve edited” are books I get a royalty for – so if my stuff isn’t your cup of tea, look under the edited books.

New this year. I’ve added a patreon as well. If you get a benefit from my editing advice or writing examples, you can also support me through: patreon.com/ErinPenn)

Flash: Burdened Reflections

Erin Penn

Photo by Antoine Da cunha on Unsplash

Art cropped by Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

Heather pulled into the daycare parking lot shaking from exhaustion. Two co-workers had quit in the early morning because of the insulting and vulgar rudeness of the pre-Christmas crowd, leaving the rest of the store to take up the slack. Lunch never happened. Getting off at her normal time had required her to demand the ability to leave, or payment to cover the daycare penalties if she showed up late.

The backup at the registers had been bad enough the tightwads running the outlet debated the costs until she shut off her light and walked away from the waiting customers.

Prying her fingers from the staring wheel, Heather shouldered her handbag before leaving the car, feeling a little naked without extra weight of the diaper bag she had left when she dropped off the children. She glanced around at the four other cars, recognizing all the them, as she quickly crossed the graveled lot, shivering in the cold. The daycare wasn’t the best, but it was willing to take in the twins and the government covered all costs so she could work. She didn’t know how she would have made ends meet without welfare assistance.

It wasn’t like her ex would be paying child support. After he dumped her once the baby bump showed, he disappeared without a trace. Phone number, facebook, twitter, old address – nothing worked. She had been so stupidly enthralled she hadn’t notice she never met any of his friends and he hadn’t bother meeting any of hers. No one existed anywhere with the name Jevil Horne, and she had looked in ways not available to most people. It was like he wasn’t on the planet anymore. She couldn’t even find where he got his inks, and they had been elaborate.

Heat embraced her through her windbreaker once the door closed behind her. The tight entryway required her to step out of the path of an exiting parent, toddler on his hip. The father nodded in passing, looking as harried as she felt. They overlapped each day during pickup and dropoff. One day she should ask his name.

She needed a new group of friends since her old ones dumped her. Babies didn’t mix with the half she used to club with, and the rest, well, they had good reason for distancing themselves even if it hurt. Getting involved with other parents might be the answer, because she sure as sunspots wasn’t going to stick around at the General Outlet after the holidays. They already treated her as a second-class citizen since she gave birth.

Breezing by the always unmanned receptionist desk at the understaffed, cut-rate daycare, Heather made her way back to the nursery area.

“Hey, Mrs. Forester, running a little late today?” asked the extremely overweight woman rocking one of the babies in the crib area, greed gleaming in her eyes.

“Only twelve minutes, which, since I usually run twenty minutes early, means I am still ontime.” Heather snapped going to the crib where they double-bunked her twins. “And it’s Miss,” she muttered under her breath, knowing no amount of correction worked with the caregiver. Heather picked up the pink and blue striped bag hanging off the side of the crib, automatically counting diapers and bottles. She hadn’t got to pump today, missing lunch, but she had enough at home for tomorrow.

“They ate just fine and needed three changes today, plus one change of clothes.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gula.” Heather pulled out her customer service smile for the hag, then lifted first one and then the other of her twins from the crib. She should complain about the daycare putting them in the same crib, but she did the same at home. At two months, there was plenty of room. Thinking into the New Year, and what her growing babies would need, required sleep she seriously lacked. Decision would be made later.

Juggling the two mostly awake children, Heather exited the building and loaded them in her blue Honda, carefully checking all the straps and kissing first her son and then her daughter on their foreheads, saying “I love you.”

Her parents, and her several sets of step-parents, never said it enough to her. If she remember right, and since she had wrote it in her diary because it had been unusual even then, the last time was her eleventh birthday. When she left home, she swore she was never going back.

If that means raising two children on her own, so mote it be.

It would be nice to hear the words from someone again. Not even her coven-mates said those magical words. Only things like “We support each other before the gods.” and “Blessed be.”

Tucking her blonde curls behind her ears, Heather climbed into the car and started shutting her door. The coven had been relieved to have a reason to kick her out; they always been scared about how quickly she learned and mastered new magics. Magic soaked into her like sunlight into a tan, it didn’t matter the form – fire or water, nature or –

The door wouldn’t close.

Heather looked up to find her ex, Jevil, grasping the top.

“Hello sexy.”

***Chapter Break

Heather’s breast tingled at the voice, trained after nearly a year under his kinky appetites, but her mind pulled the rest of her deeper in the car. He looked dangerously delicious, silhouetted against the gray, winter sky. His black curls hung around his shoulders ready to swing forward and cut off the world has he hovered above her, building anticipation before he slammed into her the first time, every time. His large hand pulled the door completely open, and he filled the space with his wickedly well-muscled body. She remember digging her hands into the hallows and stroking the planes of his sinfully perfect build. All she could think about is how much she wanted to kiss him, have him work his way down her body until she screamed for release.

Then someone tried to open the car door into the back seat. She always locked them after loading the children.

“What?” She snapped her head around to find two men, even larger than Jevil, if that was possible, trying to get in the car. The back of her car. Where her babies were.

“The door’s locked,” one of them reported, his voice satin and melted chocolate late at night, stirring hormones buried beneath the changes to her body required during nursing.

When Jevil reached to the button on her door to unlock the car, she called the winter wind and shoved him back, his unseasonably thin shirt covered in a light layer of ice.

He smiled, his eyes darkening beyond black, like they did when he applied nipple clamps or taught her a new incantation. “Don’t be that way babe.” He wiped the crusty frost from his front and strode toward the car again. “We just want the brats. It’s not like they are anything but a burden.”

burden. burden.

The day weighed down on her. Lack of food made her shake. Every screaming, demanding customer. The looks the daycare workers gave her. The abandonment of her friends. And all for what?

Her son made a sound, a half-cry for attention.

“Don’t you dare!” she spat, slamming the door. The Honda turned over instantly without her touching the key, and she peeled out, spraying gravel, hearing a slight thud when one of the men with Jevil didn’t move out of her way quickly enough.

She saw him leap impossibly high in the air, and for a second, a split second, that if she didn’t have the Sight, her mind would have brush aside for a more comfortable version of reality. Behind the suddenly naked man stretched two large wings. Black, shimmering with midnight purple and sunless silver scales, and perfectly matching the horns growing out of his head. One hand gave her a single taloned finger in her rear-view mirror, as he landed back on the ground, pulling the illusion back into place.

“Oh goddess, oh goddess.” Heather kept looking at her side mirror all the way home, though nothing seemed to be following her.

The rental was small, but affordable, at least on the salary she had before she got fired because of missing days from morning sickness. The hard scrabble since then from one minimum wage to job to another destroyed her anemic savings long before the babies were born. Government assistance workers had helped arrange partial payment until some real section 8 housing opened up, but she had to make up the difference. She hadn’t made her portion of this month’s payment; she didn’t think her landlord would kick her out until after Christmas. Her luck said today might be the day.

Well, good luck with that. No one would get anywhere near the house today. Pulling into the garage, she raised the wards her coven had put in place back when they used to meet here and locked the house up tighter than a fortress. When Jevil had dumped her, she had rescinded his welcome and cleaned the house of all traces of his existence. The first pass had been mostly to find something to cast a tracking spell because she wanted to give the jerk a piece of her mind, but the bastard hadn’t left even a hair behind. No way he could get inside now.

She breathed deeply instead of hyperventilating, and turned off the car, this time with the key.

“So, Apollo and Diana, how did you like meeting your daddy?”

The twins started crying after being silent the entire wild ride home.

(Words 1610; first published 1/27/2019)

Other Cool Blogs: 6 Ways You’re Botching Your Dialogue

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On June 5, 2013 writing for Litreactor.com (has changed to a pay-per-view around 2/28/2023), Robbie Blair encapsulated the perfect advice for adding energy to dialogue. Why is dialogue so important? Dialogue is where character development meets action. Capturing the way the characters speak metamorphosizes the perfectly dressed poseable dolls sculptured with words into believable people.

Dialogue is where character development meets action.

Every single one of the “6 Ways You’re Botching Your Dialogue” are ones I have bounced slushes on, corrected authors on while editing, commented on during reviews, AND needed to fix in my own writing. See the whole article here:  (link no longer working as of 2/24/2023).

WRITING EXERCISE: Go to your work in-progress (WIP) and pick out a dialogue scene. Use at least one of the six comments to attack the dialogue and make it better – adjust a character’s speech to match their education and background, show hierarchy by who is polite to whom, kill the clones.

***

You can see some of these techniques in action in two recent pieces on the blog, Old Dragon and Small Fiddle.

In Old Dragon, the dialogue reveals much about each character. From the disrespect of the young man addressing the town elder as “grandpa”, to the simple words of the child listening in the audience. The POV character is a master storyteller and his words have a pace to them the others lack, but he speaks differently to each person and when in storytelling mode.

In Small Fiddle, the main character is addressed differently by several people in chapter one. Olivia is formal, but adult familiar, addressing the POV as “Rebecca”. That woman’s voice is haughty and cutting. Meanwhile, Paulie, the short order cook, calls her “Becca” while his daughters address the adult as “Mrs. Hurt.” All three of the food truck workers are polite to the customer with just the right touch of friendly for repeat business.

How Rebecca talks to the other people around her changes based on her relationships with them as well. Finally linear dialogue is avoided because Rebecca is actively trying to derail Olivia’s self-righteous gossip-mongering.