The Eye of Night
Bantam Spectra, July 2, 2002
by Sapphire-Winning Author Pauline J. Alama
A finalist for the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award for Best First Novel in Science Fiction/Fantasy
Nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award
Click Here for Frequently Asked Questions about The Eye of Night
The mythic fantasy The Eye of Night is available from Amazon.com, [email protected], and many other booksellers, online and out there.
Booklist recommends The Eye of Night to fans of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion, Locus called The Eye of Night "pleasantly different," SFRevu praised its "adventurous travels, supernatural thrills, mythic resonances and depth of feeling," Rendezvous called it "A masterful first novel," and Romantic Times rated it a Top Pick for July 2002.
Signings and other public appearances:
Lunacon
March 19, 2005
I will be there for the day only, leaving around 5 p.m. to hurry home to Baby Sean, who is the innocent cause of my very sparse recent activity in fandom. He shows early promise of a future in SF fandom: at 16 months, he can already say "planet" and "rocket."
What else I've written:
Readers of THE EYE OF NIGHT may also enjoy my revisionist fairy tale, "Raven Wings on the Snow," published in Marion Zimmer Bradley's SWORD & SORCERESS XVIII,, which took second place in this year's Sapphire Awards. See SFROnline.com.
I can't say that my short story "Home for the Holidays," a satiric take on Santa Claus through the eyes of his latchkey kid, has much in common with The Eye of Night -- it's my first humor sale, and rather a departure from my past published work -- but it's in the holiday spirit, in a cockeyed kind of way. It appears in Rotten Relations, ed. Denise Little, (DAW Books, December 2004). Click Here for my holiday message.
My next novel, THE GHOST-BEARERS, will be a tale of two haunted people from different lands who must join forces to save what remains of all they have loved. It will be set in the same world as THE EYE OF NIGHT, but earlier in history. It's coming...whenever I finish it!
Does anyone have a copy of my 1994 story, "Heartless," in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine #22? I seem to have lost my copies when I moved.
What I've been reading:
Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur trilogy, published as Young Adult fiction but well worth Not-So-Young-Adult attention for its poetic writing and attention to the physical details of medieval life.
Njal's Saga, a medieval Icelandic work about the cycle of violence that seems suprisingly timely. Medieval Iceland lacked social structures strong enough to keep the peace between warring families and individuals driven to no-win violence by a self-destructive concept of honor. On the international scene, I think we're in much the same situation: substitute nations for families, and you have all too many of the same no-win, no-escape conflicts. As Njal tells another character in the saga, once you start killing, it's hard to stop.
I recently read Pilgrim's Progress and found it rather horrifying: in my opinion, "Christian" in the book is a coward who leaves his family behind in a city he believes about to be destroyed and runs away to save his own skin. He never does anything to help anyone else, unless you count preaching at them, which I don't. But then, I'm Catholic: I was taught to believe in the importance of good works, not just Faith. I wonder whether one must be a Protestant to see the positive side of this allegory, and I wonder, too, whether Pilgrim's Progress was what Tolkien (who was VERY Catholic) had in mind when he wrote that he felt uncomfortable with allegory.
Pauline J. Alama
pjalama @ excite.com
