Caldryn Parliament

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  • A Blank Slate

    cubist painting of a young orphan boy

    I haven’t done an official study, but I think fantasy is overpopulated by orphans.

    The lone hero is a classic protagonist because they’re not tied down by familial commitments and are free to adventure. An orphan is also on a search (quest) for who they might be.

    But for all the advantages offered by an orphan re plot development and character growth, I wonder if part of their appeal is due to our unacknowledged desire to escape intergenerational trauma. We’re all curious as to who we’d be if we weren’t shaped by the suffering of those who contributed to our genes.

    In truth, genes are inescapable. However, in fantasy an orphan hero presents as a blank slate. Their experience, and their experience alone, shapes who they are.

    And yet, hearing the stories of those who came before us could be the key to our own resilience.

    Breaking the Chains of Generational Trauma

    I value fiction precisely because it offers an escape as well as a safe space to explore difficult issues. But life is challenging and as much as stories can be part of our healing, we all need help sometimes. Our stories are integral to us and should be shared carefully. In Australia you can find help from Lifeline and Beyond Blue. Wherever you are in the world, please be kind to yourself, respect your own needs, and choose wisely the people who will help you to tell your stories.

    Beyond Blue https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

    Lifeline https://www.lifeline.org.au/

  • The Unknowable Self

    art deco painting of a woman looking in a mirror

    David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute, was a guest on StarTalk recently. He was talking about a lot of things, but the bit that caught my attention was the idea that language is just a thin layer over our evolutionarily ancient brains. So, when we sleep on a problem that vast part of us that isn’t defined or constrained by language gets to work.

    What an intriguing idea.

    If we don’t reason from language but from patterns I can imagine AI advocates arguing that AI is even better than us at pattern recognition, so woohoo! Go, AI!

    BUT (yep, all capitals) we take in so much more information than an AI. It might be fed the internet, but we have bodies that are sensory hogs. We interrogate our environment constantly in ways we don’t understand, and hence, can’t replicate with AI.

    Whatever “intelligence” emerges from AI it won’t be human because it doesn’t have our body, including our ancient brain.

    I’m truly fascinated by the idea that so much of our self is unknowable. We are ancient, instinctive, communal yet forever locked into an individual bodily self. I’m currently asking my non-verbal brain, “who am I?” and it’s answering … “I am” by breathing and listening and being.

    Was Descartes wrong to say, “I think, therefore I am”?

  • Recent Reads – August 2025

    an art deco style painting of a dog reading a kindle in the garden

    I had a great reading month this August. Here are the highlights. Please, share yours!

    Hedesa by Rachel Neumeier – the 10th book in her Tuyo series. The first book in this series and the ninth, Rihasa, are my favorites, but Hedesa has the same thoughtful, immersive quality to the storytelling.

    The Ninth Element by Sara Hatami – the first book in the Legend of Nohvan series. I’m not actually a big fan of trial fantasies, but the world building is solid and the protagonist’s insecurity compelling.

    Towerbound by Samson Chui is the second book in a regression LitRPG series. The current rash of books where the protagonist starts out by dying/failing but then gets a chance of a do-over while retaining all their knowledge from the first time around fascinate me. This series, which celebrates the underdogs, is one of my favorites. There’s a roughness to the storytelling that suits the Scrap Rats, but it’s the compassion in the story that appeals to me.

    Ilona Andrews published The Inheritance, which they’d previously shared in instalments on their website. It hit number one in the Kindle Store, which is awesome. It proves there are multiple paths to market. It’s also, simply, a great read. It’s a dungeon crawl with a mom as the protagonist … and I’m not sharing any spoilers!

    I discovered that some of Phyllis A Whitney’s modern (as in written a few decades ago) gothic romances are in Kindle Unlimited and I went on a bit of a reading binge. I don’t love all of them, but they’re worth checking out. Hunter’s Green has a young American woman struggling to rescue her marriage to an English aristocrat in the Swinging ’Sixties.

    Alex Karne released a new isekai novel (a Marine transported to a new world) that promises to be a series. It’s a little bit sweary and violent, but also funny and with a core of kindness and respect for Marine values. Magic Murder Cube Marine.

    In non-fiction I read Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organises the World by Mark Galeotti which was fascinating for exploring the very blurry line between legal and illegal activity in different times and places. I’d already read his book The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia and I thoroughly recommend it.

    I also added a few things to the website. Most importantly, Ghosts Cry, the fourth book in the series is available for pre-order.

    Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FNQV2314

    Ghosts Cry book page on this site: https://caldryn.com/books/ghosts-cry/

    I have added three new character pages: Landry Alsop, Francesca Razon (manager of the Caldryn Parliament press office) and Acacia Morrison (CEO of a luxury concierge service and woman of mystery). And a new location: Toady’s.

  • A Sampling of Golden Age Authors

    black and white photo of a typewriter on a desk illuminated by a desklamp

    A few weeks ago in a fantasy group someone asked for non-fantasy book recommendations and I immediately thought of To The Hilt by Dick Francis. It’s a mystery/thriller from 1996 (I’m not sure if his son, Felix, co-wrote it). It’s a relatively recent book, but I’m still going to include Dick Francis in my Golden Age mystery author list because he has that style. His heroes are confident in themselves and the rightness (even righteousness) of their actions. The stories are also immersive. You live and breathe the (generally) horsey world.

    Phoebe Atwood Taylor (who also wrote as Alice Tilton) is an American Golden Age mystery author. I particularly enjoy her books from the 1940s. Written during the war, they convey a sense of the world then without losing any of her appreciation of the absurd. Check out File for Record.

    Talking of insight into WWII, Margery Allingham (one of my all-time favorite Golden Age mystery authors for her beautiful writing) wrote The Oaken Heart to explain to American readers the nature of life in England in the early years of the war. Tiger in the Smoke was my introduction to Margery Allingham’s writing and it is an awesome book. This is post-war London; damaged, smoky, enduring, and glorious. The characters are superb.

  • The Five Drones of the Apocalypse

    an art deco style painting of a giant drone in an apocalyptic city facing a tiny human

    I grew up around horses, so to me they’re friendly creatures who’ll happily exchange slobber for apples. That familiarity—horses as pets—blunted the meaning behind the four horsemen of the apocalypse for me.

    Historically, a horse and its rider were a terrifying war machine. Think of medieval knights or Mongol archers or the impact of mounted Spaniards invading South America.

    To translate that terror into modern terms, substitute drones.

    Pestilence.

    Famine.

    War.

    Death.

    All carried by drone.

    But because they’re carried by drones, and our era is what it is (namely, connected via the internet) let’s add a fifth drone. Silence.

    Silence is broken connection; a failure to communicate, a loss of trust, and the loss of bonds of community.

    We have to keep talking and listening, creating and appreciating creativity, or we lose a fundamental aspect of human existence.

    In 1962 Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. She was warning of the loss of life, the silencing, resulting from the use of dangerous chemicals. Silent was a powerful word then; a word that warned of loss; of ending. Today it is just as powerful.

    The fifth drone of the apocalypse is Silence.

  • Whose Utopia?

    art deco painting of a lion in an apocalyptic city with a icon of a lion sun god above him

    People sometimes ask why there is so much dystopian fiction and so very little utopian fiction. Often the answer given is that utopian fiction is harder to write because the conflict is less, or less obvious.

    Hmm.

    I’ve written a dystopian fantasy series, The Faerene Apocalypse, and I agree that it was never hard to find sources of conflict in that world.

    Novels (all stories) need tension to progress and to keep the audience engaged.

    But tension can be subtle. The conflict in a utopian novel mightn’t hit you in the face, but it exists. The questions of what next and why and who, how they’ll do what they choose to do, all of these questions boil down to a fundamental tension of existence—free will.

    In a utopia the characters may have built a system where free will is a positive force both individually and socially, but it still exists. Harmony isn’t frozen perfection. Entropy must be countered by creation.

    So, no, I don’t believe that lack of conflict is the reason utopian fiction is rare. I think the issue is authority.

    In dystopian fiction authority collapses. Either the story is set in a lawless land or the authority is corrupt.

    Look at the Wizard of Oz (book or movie). The authority for that world is literally named in the title, and yet, he’s merely smoke and mirrors, collapsing on revelation.

    In a utopian story the authority mustn’t collapse. The instant it can be questioned, the utopian bubble bursts. Doubt is the death of utopia—of course, handled deftly, the questioning of authority in a utopian novel can become the source of conflict for the story, and be triumphantly asserted in the ending, but…

    (and here’s the point this post has been building to)

    To write a utopian novel the author has to be confident in the authority that legitimises the utopian community. Belief in that authority underpins the utopia both in the fictional world and for the reader.

    And let me tell you that, as an author, it is very, very, very hard to summon the sort of confidence to be all-in with a single authority.

    The modern world lives by Lord Acton’s maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    The authority that underpins a utopia has to be absolute. Anything less allows for cracks to form, beginning the fracturing of the utopia. Yet, absolute power itself corrupts. So, the authority of the utopia is the reason it will fail—unless the author presents an authority so compelling, so confident, that we can believe it transcends the limits of our lived experience of fallible humanity.

    Imagining a utopia is, therefore, a political act. It requires the suspension of disbelief in pursuit of believing in a greater good, a cause. The author must convince the audience to sacrifice their doubt and embrace an authority that can deliver them from themselves.

    It sounds a heck of a lot like a cult, doesn’t it?

  • Recent Reads – July 2025

    marble statue reading

    Before anything else I have to say a HUGE thank you for reading, reviewing, and supporting me with your kind comments and messages during Hexes Fly’s release week. You are awesome!

    I indulged in some re-reading in July including Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn, and Rihasi by Rachel Neumeier.

    I hit a few books that were just … almost worth finishing. I finished them, but I was underwhelmed. Some books I DNF’d. Hence my happy dive back into old favorites.

    Fortunately, my non-fiction read was awesome. I thoroughly recommend Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age by Ada Palmer. It’s a long book, meticulously researched, and written with passion and humor. It’s setting me rethinking a lot of my historical assumptions—and some of my current day ones, too. Excellent book!

    What did you read in July?

  • New Release: Hexes Fly by Jenny Schwartz

    Hexes Fly by Jenny Schwartz - cover features painting of people dancing

    Welcome back to Caldryn Parliament! The Spring Ball is fast approaching. It marks the beginning of Spring Term. Vanda has big plans for the Warden’s office (to her keepers’ dismay) and some personal issues to address. Giddy is…well, Giddy is keeping secrets, but they’re for the next book, Rogues Lie, so I won’t mention them. I’ll just leave you in suspense because I am evil! There is danger, intrigue, and deep questions of identity ahead. The hexes are flying!

    Hexes Fly: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXN1LF23/

    I hope you’re enjoy this slow development of an alternate universe. When the idea for Caldryn Parliament came to me it was partly because I wanted to capture the confident optimism of Golden Age mysteries, but also because I love peek-behind-the-scenes settings and parliaments are fascinating. Plus, the fantasy scene is ready to move beyond magic school and magic college settings to magical workplaces and the exploration of complicated issues.

    In Hexes Fly the emphasis remains on the magic aspect of the Realm. The science fiction component will grow. Writing this series is an exercise in self-restraint. I have so many ideas, but they have to be introduced in their own time. Flowers have to be seeded far enough apart that they can all bloom.

    A lot is happening in the Realm. We’re only just getting started.

    Hexes Fly

    Out now!

  • Problematic Romantasy

    a painting of a girl with a flower and a dragon

    I love romantasy. I adore the yearning, the action, and the imagined worlds. I was reading it before it became romantasy and one of the biggest selling genres in fiction.

    But…

    (oh, you knew there was going to be a but)

    Have you noticed how many romantasy protagonists in recent releases suffer from self-loathing?

    I was shocked when I realised that the emotional driver for the book I was reading was the hero and heroine’s mutual rescue of each other from self-loathing.

    Once I put the cause of their angst into words — “I hate myself. I’m despicable. Nobody could love me.” — I realised that the previous romantasy I’d read had a similar vibe, although it only had one protagonist drowning in self-loathing and the other hauling them out.

    What concerned me was that this is the emotion that resonates with readers. I love a good rescue story as much as anyone (I eat up Cinderella stories, although not as much as Beauty and the Beast ones). However, waiting for someone to love you so that you can love yourself is perilous.

    To quote Maya Angelou, “You alone are enough.”

    As soon as I started thinking about romantasy that featured this empowering vibe I came up with When Demons Walk by Patricia Briggs. Also Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly and A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (the third book in the Scholomance trilogy didn’t work for me, but I happily read and re-read the first two). Neverthorn by Shannon Mayer is out today, and since her protagonists never wait around to be rescued I’m really looking forward to it (plus, dark academia! I love it).

    What fantasy books would you suggest with strong characters, powerful conflicts, and a happy ever after?

  • Hexes Fly is Taxiing Up to the Runway

    Hexes Fly by Jenny Schwartz - cover features painting of people dancing

    Hexes Fly is out in just over a week – Saturday July 26. Until then I thought you might enjoy an excerpt. Rather than have the excerpt lost in the shuffle of blog posts and newsletters, it’s available on the Hexes Fly book page here on my website. Forever!

    Hexes Fly pre-order link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXN1LF23/

    In other news, I’ve been suffering author envy. This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews has yet another great cover from Tor. I often sigh over Tor covers, both as an author and as a reader. This cover makes me wonder if a new style of fantasy cover is coming. I don’t think I’ve seen an author’s name in a circle before. The entire cover is a really interesting stylistic choice.

    Still talking Ilona Andrews’ news (and no, I don’t know them, I just enjoy their books) I’m looking forward to the release of their current serialized story (available on their website) as a book, The Inheritance. May it be soon!

    I’ve attacked my Goodreads account after leaving it inactive for years. I haven’t gotten around to updating covers for my books yet, but I have deleted all my reviews. I know. Gasp!

    I may change my mind, but at the moment my plan is to use my Goodreads account as a kind of “if you like my books then you’ll probably like books by these authors, too”. So, I’ll be gradually adding a book from each author I think readers of my books would enjoy. It’s the simplest way I can think of to do that kind of thing, and once set up, should be easy to maintain as I discover new authors.

    My Goodreads bookshelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3443770-jenny-schwartz