Apologies all around:  my awful “day job” – which takes place at night – has me to the point where I see my children for four freaking minutes each evening before I go to work.  Not happy about that.

Anyhoo.  I’ve been a tick busy getting questionnaires answered and blog-posts typed for an upcoming Virtual Book Tour for “The Fourth Law.”  Sure, I’m almost a year late doing this… I’m old, dammit.

Some of the questions are straightforward; a few have been very thought provoking.  Much more dangerous are the requested blog entries.  For example, the one I’m working on now said ‘topic:  author’s choice.’  Ooo!  What trouble I can get into!  In fact, that’s exactly what I want to do.  So, I’m writing a little (~600 word) entry about Lily’s Catholic faith.  Honestly, it’s something you really don’t see in current science fiction much, and I had some early reviewers tell me that “it will turn off some readers.”

Fine.

Politics is downstream from culture.  I want my daughters to have a better life than I have, and, honestly, that looks iffy these days.  If I can nudge WestCiv culture in a way that I think might help them – even if it costs me readers and sales – I’ll do that.  In “T4L” I have Lily freely admit that although she grew up Catholic, her faith meant little to her, until she was on her own at the hospital and orphanage.  Much of how she thinks and acts towards God and the Church now are heavily drawn from Niven and Pournelle’s two books about the Inferno.  A sharp eyed reader of “T4L” will see that every time Lily cries  “…God!  Help me…!” things suddenly change for her, but not in a way she expects.  Getting your prayers answered is like that.

Lily’s witness to her Catholic faith is so important, that by the end of the first book of Machine Civilization, one of Ai’s family is well on her way to a conversion… which will be played out when my 20-page children’s book is completed in a couple of months (go Claudia go!).  It is also something that sustains her on her trek across the former southern States of the US in “Echoes of Family Lost.”  In both books, her faith, and her charitas towards her friends, define who she is.

I’m tired and rambling.  Need to get back to that guest-blog entry.  Thanks for reading… and… (grins)… prayers would be welcome!