Legends and Lattes

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree is a cozy fantasy. We follow a very large female orc named Viv who has decided to make a career change. She has hung up her sword-for-hire and decided to open a coffee shop. She had tasted coffee in a far-off land while she had been busy doing her sword work. It was a life-changing moment. One final job, whose purpose was to retrieve a magic stone that would bring luck (which she suspected she would need. I mean, who doesn’t need luck when starting a small business?) and she was off across the country to find the perfect place for her shop, and to reinvent her life.

The town where she has decided to set up shop, Thune, has all sorts of magical and mythical creatures in residence: ratkins, gnomes, hobs, succubae, and a variety of humans from every walk of life. But none of them had ever heard of coffee. This was not surprising. Viv had never heard of it until she stumbled across it in that far-away land. With her life savings, she purchases an old stable, a gnomish contraption for making coffee, hires a handyman to help her convert the stable into a shop, and coffee beans. She then counts on the magic stone to do its good luck thing. She hires a couple of people to help her and opens for business. Nothing happens at first, but gradually her coffee and other offerings begin to take hold in the community.

Of course, if everything went smoothly, there would be no story. One of the strengths of the story is the characters. I mean Viv is an orc. Who ever heard of a lovable orc? Well, I guess I have now. Viv’s friend and co-worker Tandry (a succubus) and her baker Thimble (a ratkin), and her handyman Cal (a hob. Yes, I had to look up what a hob is. I invite you to do the same) make up just some of the fun cast. These characters show their true mettle when things go disastrously wrong. But mostly, they are just people (I use that term loosely) who you would like to hang out with. Is it possible for an orc to fall in love? Maybe, maybe not. You will just have to read it to find out. This is not epic fantasy and there is not much in the way of philosophy or life lessons. It is just a fun story.

Star Liner

Comments

The Trip Home

My wife and I recently returned from a trip to New York to visit my son and his wife. What follows is an excerpt of my notes from that trip. Departure day. So we and the kids (adult kids) leave by 5:30 AM. These “kids” are night owls. They rarely wake before 10:00 if they don’t have to, so we appreciate the sacrifice. Daughter-in-Law (DIL) drove us the 30 minutes to the train station. Hugs and good-byes for her (we love DIL. DIL is an irresistible force). Son navigates us a route to the platform with fewer stairs than the way we came. We get a ticket and get on the train headed for the big city and Grand Central Station. I soon realize that this train is not an express train like the one we took coming out. Instead of taking a little over an hour like we did before, this one would take a little over an hour and a half. We stop at places with names like Cold Springs and Peekskill (on this trip we saw a lot of place names that ended in “kill” including Kaatskill, i.e. Catskill, and

That 70's Decade

Can a decade become a caricature? My teen years were in the 1970’s and none of us who lived through the 70’s thought our decade was going to be a figure of fun. When you are a part of it, you don’t realize what people are going to make fun of later. I think there are two reasons why people snicker when the 70’s are mentioned: clothing styles and Disco. Both things could be called extensions of trends that started in the 60’s. When the hippy styles of the 60’s became more formalized for the dance floor, the result was (in hindsight) rather bizarre. They did not seem bizarre at the time. People following present fashion trends never understand that they are wearing something that will be laughed at in ten years. Yes, I did have a pair of bell-bottom blue jeans (are they making a comeback?) The mere mention of the 1970’s conjures up someone in a ridiculous pose wearing a disco suit. We who lived through the 70’s just went about our normal life. There were quite a lot of things that ha

Tyranny of the Masses

I was listening to Benjamin Netanyahu on the radio. He was justifying his change in the law that removed power from the Israeli Supreme Court, saying that it was the will of the people. Majority rules. This made me think of “Tyranny of the masses,” a concept that notes: just because a majority of people are for something, that doesn’t make it right. I am sure you can think of historical examples where the people of a country supported a policy that was demonstrably wrong. When everything is completely governed by majority rule, the rights of the minority can be subverted by the majority. The framers of our American Constitution knew this, and tried to put in some checks and balances into our system of government. This was to guard against all forms of tyranny whether from a dictator, or from tyranny of the masses. One of those checks is that we have a representative government. The people themselves don’t pass laws, but instead elect representatives at the federal and local level t

A speculative mind

Search This Blog