C. Chancy over at Crossover Queen’s Creative Chaos had an excellent post on respect and relationships this past week, readers. It got me thinking and, while I won’t say you will see the result of those thoughts in a post on this site any time soon, I will probably be linking to this article again in the future. Ms. Chancy gave me a fair number of ideas to chew over here, but they will take time to appear in an article.
In the meantime, not only am I going to leave you to read her post, I am going to shamelessly plug The Guardian Cycle, Vol.1: In Dreams and Other Stories* because this anthology in particular and to some extent the series itself is meant to tackle the problem of Respect in Relationships that Ms. Chancy discusses. I have had it up to my neck with characters in modern fiction showing no respect to one another and not demonstrating an iota of sense during the course of an adventure. You have all read my posts about this, and with In Dreams, now you get to see it in my fiction directly.
In addition to hyping my book, I also want to give a shout-out to Ms. Chancy’s latest work, Oni the Lonely*. I intend to purchase this Urban Romance novel once I have the opportunity (eyes TBR pile) and maybe read a couple of other books into submission. Still, everything I’ve seen so far not only tells me Oni the Lonely is the author following her own advice, it’s going to be a really entertaining read.
So while you’re putting In Dreams in the shopping cart at Amazon, pick up Oni the Lonely, too. You will not regret either purchase, readers!
Current Events: Downstream of Culture
When you look at a lot of the mess going on in current society, at the base of it all, what we have is a relationship problem. As in, people do not learn how to properly do relationships. At all.
Yes, I know, I’m speaking from the viewpoint of someone who needs notes and a flowchart to even start to understand the network of social connections in any given place or situation. On the other hand I think that puts me in the same position as an early epidemiologist trying to figure out disease transmission. I can’t use what “everybody knows”, I have to write down the facts as I see them and see if they make any sense. And that is how Dr. John Snow knew how to ignore the “miasmas” and take the handle off one specific water pump to stop a cholera epidemic.
So what I see is that, at least for the past several decades, people have not been taught what a good relationship is. How to be a good parent. Sibling. Boss. Employee. Random entrepreneur getting by. Most especially, how to be a good spouse.
*These are Amazon affiliate links. When you purchase something through them, this author receives a commission from Amazon at no extra charge to you, the buyer.
If you liked this article, friend Caroline Furlong on Facebook or follow her here at www.carolinefurlong.wordpress.com. Her stories have been published in Cirsova’s Summer Special and Unbound III: Goodbye, Earth. She has also had stories published in the Planetary Anthology Series. Another story was released in Cirsova Magazine’s Summer Issue in 2020, and she had a story published in Storyhack Magazine’s 7th Issue, Cirsova Magazine’s 2021 Summer Issue, and another may be read over at Ember Journal. Her first anthology in The Guardian Cycle is available in paperback and ebook as well. Order them today!
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A Song of Joy by Caroline Furlong 
It seems to this “seasoned citizen,” (born two years into Eisenhower’s first term), that a lack of respect for others, both up and down the social ladder, so to speak, is on the short list of things that we have, for reasons unknown to me, stopped teaching our children. Perhaps the failure derives from the general rejection of God, and His replacement with the religion of Self. I don’t really know. The lack of this critical component of a civil society, however, clearly leads to much conflict and chaos. I would add that an understanding that those who demand respect must earn it by their own virtues also has become scarce. It’s one of those two-way streets about which we hear so often.
I therefore welcome enthusiastically the notion that our popular literature ought to remind us how the “respect equation” is supposed to work in various situations. A little mutual respect could go a long way toward damping the fires of hatred currently being stoked by certain factions in our culture.
By golly, when I am made Czar of the Universe, I’m going to fix that. 😁
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Then people you respect are generally assets in your adventure, which you have to write around to increase conflict.
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I’d argue it’s not EXACTLY an urban fantasy romance, honestly– it’s what folks who are not big fans of, say, Laurel K. Hamilton might think of when you say “urban fantasy romance.”
The only SuperAwesome weapon mentioned is a shotgun suitable for hitting crows, for example, and the biggest magical nuke is a tricky sort of thing along the lines of fairy tales– you know, like how “neither naked nor clothed, neither riding nor walking, neither on land nor in water” is someone wrapped in a net with a leg over a donkey going down the shoreline.
Romance readers might call it something like modern fantasy with a slow burn sweet romance?
I call it a really good story that treats the mythology *respectfully*. 😀
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