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The Daily Communiqué

The Daily Communiqué: 6 April 2019 – Questions

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For Michael and Cody

20 Questions

  1. “Are you ready to hear this?”
  2. “Why do you ask silly questions?”
  3. “Guess who has a clause in their contract stating they don’t actually have to do their job?”
  4. “Are you kidding me?”
  5. “Why would I do that?”
  6. “Who else knows?”
  7. “Do I look like Information Central?”
  8. “Is this why the budget’s shot?”
  9. “Is the budget shot?”
  10. “Are people lying about the budget?”
  11. “Are they telling the truth?”
  12. “What’s being done?”
  13. “About which?”
  14. “Can’t they be fed to the dragon?”
  15. “Which dragon?”
  16. “Won’t the Regents do anything?”
  17. “Who do you think approved the clause?”
  18. “Shouldn’t we ride out and warn others?”
  19. “Against what?”
  20. “Why are people so stupid?”
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The Daily Communiqué: 5 April 2019 – Leadership

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Trust …

Hat tip to Hugh MacLeod and Gaping Void Art, I’ve been a fan for years and find his advice on leadership to be common sense.

Positive Relationships. Trust is in part based on the extent to which a leader is able to create positive relationships with other people and groups.

Good Judgement/Expertise. … the extent to which a leader is well-informed and knowledgeable. They must understand the technical aspects of the work as well as have a depth of experience.

Consistency. … the extent to which leaders walk their talk and do what they say they will do.

(Zenger, J. and Folkman, J. (2019). The 3 Elements of Trust. Harvard Business Review. [online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-3-elements-of-trust [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019])

And lord, how many jobs have I had where no one, not one executive or manager understood these three basic tenets of good leadership.  It always frustrated me that at the lowest end of the totem pole possible, I knew more about leadership than anyone running the company did.

I have watched institutions, big and small, fall completely apart because leadership didn’t understand how to  use the Golden Rule.  To start with.

As a temp, and sadly, as a woman, I’ve been witness to more sexism and classism I ever thought possible.  Because, c’mon I’m educated and smart, I work hard and get the job done.  Over the years, my radar has become very finely tuned and can pick up micro-aggressions from across the building.

Most of my life, I’ve been like the canary in the coal mine. I saw it coming but was powerless to do anything about it.  Pointing out the flaw in the system was usually dismissed until months later, the problem got too big to ignore.  I’m over thinking, “If people would just listen to me …”  But I’m just sayin’.

It’s not hard to gain an employees’ trust, if a leader is doing their job right.  At a month into my latest day job, I trust them to do right by me.  Because they’ve already shown me they know how to be a leader.  The company is enormous and, granted, I have purposely stuck my head in the sand because I’m just tired of playing, but this company does things well.

As a contractor, I expected to be left out, for people not to remember my name or even be willing to acknowledge my presence.  None of it’s happened.  One executive walks through our area every morning greeting us by name, me included.  Another manager makes sure the snack drawers are loaded and sets up the monthly birthday potlucks.  And make sure to include me.

Cynicism in the workplace has become my go to strategy.  That way I’m not hurt or surprised if someone looks right through me because I’m a temp or contractor.  It’s happened.  More than once.

At first I would get all tangled up and hurt but I’ve moved on.  Because what kind of person are you that you stand right in front of someone and completely ignore them while introducing yourself to the person sitting at the table next to them?  I’m certainly not the asshole in this scenario.

(Did I tell you the one about being denied access to the extra food which was going to go to waste because I was a temp?  True story.)

Oh, and I have a long memory.  There’s a list several miles long of people I will never work with again, ever.  As a potential leader, I have learned great lessons on what not to do.

If a leader doesn’t treat their staff with respect, asking questions as they go along, the staff will never return that respect.  And when crunch time comes, they won’t be motivated to go all in to get the job done.

Probably the worst thing is working for people who have no idea what my job is, how it’s done and what I need to get it done right.   At one job, the first week my new manager started, I asked to schedule 1:1s, because I had a lot of questions and we needed to start setting policies.  He blew me off.  Completely.  In his first week as a new manager with a staff of one, he blew that one off.

So, of course, as I continued to fumble along things went horribly awry.  I had no back up, no one to turn to, and was set up for failure.  The shocking thing is how common this is, across industries in companies small and big.

Over 30 years in Silicon Valley and I could tell stories that would make people weep.  I probably have.  And it’s so freaking simple.  Walk around, introduce yourself (or reintroduce yourself), make yourself available.  And show your staff that if you don’t know about their job, you want to learn.  Take 15 minutes every week just to walk past and offer your hand, “How can I be of service to you?”

Don’t wait for the bullies to come knocking and watch a major blowup happen to one of your staff members.  (Yeah, that happened too.)  Set your entire group up to succeed.  Lead by example, show them you’re not too good to get in the trenches with them if necessary.

And my goodness, praise them.  Thank them  for their hard work.  Regularly.  Don’t save it for meetings.  Walk into someone’s cubicle and tell them how much you appreciate their work.  Bring lunch in and sit at the table with them.  And listen when they talk.  Listen to what they have to say, don’t just wait for your turn to talk.

Good leadership isn’t hard.  It shouldn’t be and makes me more than a little grouchy when I see how badly people botch it.

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The Daily Communiqué: 4 April 2019 – Procrastination

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Procrastination.

“… procrastination is deeply existential, as it raises questions about individual agency and how we want to spend our time as opposed to how we actually do.”  (Lieberman, Charlotte. “Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control).” The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2019)

Been there, done that to the point where I’ve lost complete track of what I’m supposed to be doing.  It’s the worst when I’m between day jobs and sit at home trying to convince myself things are getting done.  When clearly they’re not.  “I’m not writing right now because I’m thinking.”  Possibly true, but also a great disguise for procrastination.

I don’t wanna do that thing, usually write that thing, because it’s scary in there.  Big scary.  Even if it’s something no one but me is ever going to see, the inner critic/imposter convinces me I’m better off not even trying.

I mean, it’s not going to be any good right?  So why even try?  I’ll toddle off to do something completely mundane like filing or website clean up or, heaven forfend, dishes.  Yay!  I’m cleaning!  Boo, I’m still not doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing.

It becomes a spiral.  I recognize I’m procrastinating and I feel crappy about it, but I keep finding other things to do.  Until, finally I just give in and do the thing.  Then I wonder what all the fuss was about.

“Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.”  (op cit)

As I become healthier, I look to my emotions first.  “This is an interesting reaction to whatever just happened, what’s really going on?”  Knowing my emotional state helps get me going.

As I’ve developed in my writing, it’s gotten harder.  Many writers talk about this, “the better you get at writing, the harder it gets.”  And I often find myself putting off writing something because “ah, man harder?”  As far as I can tell, there is no point at which writing gets easier.

This is why it’s important to me to follow my favorite authors on Twitter and Facebook.  All of them have published books and work hard on their craft.  And all of them, these people which books I’ve paid for and admire from afar, say “This is hard, just shoot me now.”

So it appears I’m in very good company.  And that helps me get past the big scary and write.  Or at least be willing to face the big scary and write anyway.

 

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The Daily Communiqué: 3 April 2019 – Happy Talk

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My dear friend, Alexander Watson, sent the song “Happy Talk,” sung by Shezwae Powell, from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical South Pacific.  It’s a reminder not to listen to the inner imposter who tells me I’m not good enough to fulfill the many dreams I have.

Alexander also keeps reminding me that I’m allowed to succeed.  Being allowed to succeed is counter-intuitive to me.  There are so many ways I was set up to not succeed that I began to take it as a given I never would.  Despite the many things I could point to as successes, the overarching attitude I had was I would never succeed.

This has been changing for me, slowly, over the past few years.  Instead of seeing only the failures, I concentrate on the successes.  Sometimes that’s getting out of bed and getting showered.  Other days it’s about writing something I’m proud of.  Little steps take me as far as big ones, so long as I’m patient with myself and keep up the reminders that each moment is an opportunity for success.

Survivors of childhood trauma usually have diagnosable mental illness.  (A cold’s an illness, so is depression.)  And we are hardwired to believe we’re no good, despite evidence to the contrary.

What works for me is finding things to be grateful for.  If it’s a really horrible no good day I look to remembering the things I often take for granted.  I have a place to live and stash all my books, and it has hot and cold running water with indoor plumbing.  I have food in the fridge, clothes to wear, and books to read.  There are friends I reach out to who listen and hold my hand while I take the next step.  I am always and forever grateful for them.

It’s not easy and there are days when I would rather sit in the gray fog, but I’m a busy woman with dreams to make come true.  One more thing to be grateful for.

I’ll end with Ella’s version of “Happy Talk.”

“You gotta have a dream
if you don’t have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?”

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The Daily Communiqué: 2 April 2019 – The Drink Tank’s Hamilton

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I’m in a hurry today.  My editor, Chris Garcia, is patiently waiting for me to get my piece on Alexander Hamilton polished and delivered for publication in his zine, The Drink Tank.

March was unkind to my writing schedule.  Three weeks of bleurgh will do that.  (That’s a highly technical term for the head cold that won’t go away.)  A couple of weeks after starting my new day job, the bleurgh took me out for most of a week.  That was followed by a couple of weeks’ worth of more coughing, wheezing, and general yuckiness during which I’d go to work and then straight to bed.

Chris and I were once co-workers.  I took great delight in getting completely esoteric with him.  My first comment to him was how from a distance he looked like Alan Ginsberg.  Chris’ response literally stopped me in my tracks, “I miss Alan.”  Encounters like this are not rare with Chris.

After parting from our mutual work place, I asked how I could support his zines.  “Words, send me words,” he said.  And that was how my adventure there began.

Click on the tag “On Writing” in the pull down menu labelled Categories on the left hand side and you’ll see links to the editions I have pieces in.

So yeah, I’m in a hurry and need to get the piece about Hamilton to Chris.

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The Daily Communiqué: 1 April 2019 – It Begins

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The Daily Communiqué is part Brain Pickings, part homage to M. Todd Gallowglas’ Nine Tenths Project, definitely more than online diary.

I have long admired Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings while being completely overwhelmed and intimidated by it.  To be able to spend that much time and energy to go deeply into so many topics is a dream for me.  Maria takes such care with her work, it’s an inspiration.

Which leads me to the work I do with my mentor M. Todd Gallowglas, whose tutelage in Literary Criticism has opened my mind to new ways of reading and writing.  It’s tough work sometimes, learning new ways of thinking usually are.  I have become completely enamored with it.

The Nine Tenths Project is Gallowglas’ annual challenge to himself for writing.  He writes a vignette a day and publishes it on his Patreon.  This project is open to anyone.  It’s exciting to watch the story unfold.

The genesis of my own annual challenge to write and publish daily came while on lunch break not long ago.  Gallowglas’ The Stopwatch Chronicles is part of the inspiration.  His vignettes are nothing short of breath taking, some only a few paragraphs.

I suppose I would describe my project The Daily Communiqué as a way to address all those newsletters in my email that I set aside as something I’ll write about “later.”  Later is now.  Welcome to the show.

Reviews

Review: Shadow Ops: Breach Zone

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Shadow Ops: Breach Zone by Myke Cole

Title: Shadow Ops:  Breach Zone
Author: Myke Cole
Published: 2014
ISBN-13: 9780425256374
Publisher: Ace (now Penguin Random House)
Twitter: @MykeCole
Publisher’s Blurb:  In the fight for Latent equality, Oscar Britton is positioned to lead a rebellion in exile, but a powerful rival beats him to the punch: Scylla, a walking weapon who will stop at nothing to end the human-sanctioned apartheid against her kind.

When Scylla’s inhuman forces invade New York City, the Supernatural Operations Corps are the only soldiers equipped to prevent a massacre. In order to redeem himself with the military, Harlequin will be forced to face off with this havoc-wreaking woman from his past, warped by her power into something evil…

Shadow Ops:  Breach Zone is book 3/3 in the Shadow Ops series

This series is a mess.  At first I thought it was because Mil SF isn’t my thing.  But then I like John Scalzi’s writing just fine.

Because I enjoyed Cole’s Sacred Throne trilogy so much (third one due in October, 2019) I had hopes for Shadow Ops.  What I will say, emphatically, is Cole has grown a great deal as a writer.  Heloise is the hero we’ve all been waiting for.

To recap, Control Point saw Oscar Britton make some of the most bone-headed, selfish decisions ever in the history of everything.  It’s in this book that Scylla is unleashed on the world.  We know in no uncertain terms, she is the most dangerous and evil creature in this world, and Britton has freed her for his own selfish reason.

Book 2, Fortress Frontier, introduces us to Alan Bookbinder, a Pentagon paper-pusher who Manifests a power no one else has and is sent to the Forward Operating Base in the Source until everything goes to hell and he ends up the commanding officer.  Oscar Britton is a bit player.

And now we come to Book 3, Breach Zone.  It’s all come together, in one big horrifying pornographic death frenzy in Manhattan.  Harlequin, a secondary character in the previous books who’s always played it by the rules, because rules are what separate the good guys from the bad, is put in charge of the defense.

Now Brigadier General Bookbinder is stuck on a US Coast Guard cutter, whose lunch is getting eaten by water goblins and leviathans, has to find his way to Harlequin’s base of operations to use Bookbinder’s unique magical power.

Oscar Britton doesn’t show up until very late in the book, still being let off the heinous thing he did in book 1.  The epitome of the misunderstood hero.  The monster he unleashed is leading an army of monsters to demolish Manhattan.  Scylla wants to start the new world order.

And just to make sure we understand why this is personal for Harlequin, intermittent flashbacks from six years before set the scene.  The romantic scene, of course.

All the complicated politics weight in.  Street gangs, loyal to no one scoff when asked to join the good fight.  Politicians and career officers want to use force against everything.  And, in typical fashion, only Harlequin and those on the front lines actually understand why fire power won’t work, only magic will.

There’s barely any mention of the Indian part of the Source, and Bookbinder’s experiences trying to save the US FOB.  Murica is truly on its own.

Then, bugles blaring, Oscar Britton arrives, makes a pretty little speech and everyone shows up to fight and save the day.  Peace, justice and the American way.

Or something …

Sacred Thrones is light years better from this.  I’ll call this a cautionary tale about back catalogues.  Cole’s worth reading, but this series isn’t.

Reviews

Review: Literary Theory: A Complete Introduction

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Literary Theory: A Complete Introduction by Sara Upstone

Title: Literary Theory:  A Complete Introduction
Author: Sara Upstone
Published: 2017
ISBN: 9781473611924
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Twitter: @SaraUpstone
Publisher’s Blurb:  Literary theory has now become integral to how we produce literary criticism. When critics write about a text, they no longer think just about the biographical or historical contexts of the work, but also about the different approaches that literary theory offers. By making use of these, they create new interpretations of the text that would not otherwise be possible. In your own reading and writing, literary theory fosters new avenues into the text. It allows you to make informed comments about the language and form of literature, but also about the core themes – concepts such as gender, sexuality, the self, race, and class – which a text might explore.

“… criticism, then, is where we find the interpretation of literature.  Theory, in contrast, is where we find the tools to facilitate that interpretation.”  (p. xii)

This little book is packed with literary theory goodness.  In 260 pages, Sara Upstone covers 19 different schools of theory.  And while I don’t always agree with her assessments, or placement of movements within theories, Upstone’s overview is a great place for anyone to start learning about Literary Theory.

Having this at my fingertips has helped me figure out how Modernism and/or Post Modernism might apply to N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy, an exercise assigned by my mentor.  If Modernism is trying to make sense of the chaotic changes in a book, then The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate offer a lot to be interpreted through that lens.  People of the Stillness must make sense of their new world as the rift and the coming of a Fifth Season wreak havoc.

Further, if Post Modernism is the questioning of reality itself, The Broken Earth Trilogy again offers an opportunity for that interpretation.  Is Alabaster turning into a Stone Eater a reality?  How it it possible he was taken into the middle of the planet by a Stone Eater and lived to come out the other side?

Mind you, these are just notions I’m playing with as I explore what both Modernism and Post Modernism mean to a critical reviewer and whatever book she happens to be reading.

My biggest quibbles with Literary Theory:  A Complete Guide have to do with the dates used to place each school in a context.  I will grant that cultural anchors must exist in order for events to have a context within the greater stories.  However, as a person with a background in history, I also know that dates aren’t hard and fast.  World War I may be marked as beginning the day Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, but that’s not really what started it all.

I mention this only because I want to caution readers not to get stuck on the dates Upstone uses as absolutes.  Surrealism, sequestered in the Modernism school of theory, had its precursors in authors like Arthur Rimbaud and André Breton.

And while I’m at it, if anything, Surrealism belongs with Post Modernism if we are to take the definition of Post Modernism at face value.

But, those are of little import when it comes to the actual information contained within this small volume.  It’s best to consider the essence of the overviews of each school of theory.  And by all means, we should give consideration to our own thoughts about what we’re reading.

Sara Upstone’s Literary Theory:  A Complete Introduction has earned itself a permanent place on my reference shelf.  If, that is, I can ever get it to leave my desk.

Reviews

Review: Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier

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Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier by Myke Cole

Title: Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier
Author: Myke Cole
Published: 2013
ISBN-13: 9780425256367
Publisher: Ace (now Penguin Random House)
Twitter: @MykeCole
Publisher’s Blurb: Colonel Alan Bookbinder is an army bureaucrat whose worst war wound is a paper-cut. But after he develops magical powers, he is torn from everything he knows and thrown onto the front-lines.

Drafted into the Supernatural Operations Corps in a new and dangerous world, Bookbinder finds himself in command of Forward Operating Base Frontier—cut off, surrounded by monsters, and on the brink of being overrun.

Shadow Ops:  Fortress Frontier is 2/3 in the Shadow Ops series.

Myke Cole’s second book in the Shadow Ops series is just as jam-packed as the first, Control Point, was.  And it can be just as confusing.

I’ll be honest, I dug into Fortress Frontier for the simplest reason ever.  I wanted to know what happened to Oscar Britton, last seen trying to make things right after he selfishly released Scylla who immediately laid waste to the SOC, opening it to invasion from the enemy indigents.

The things I had problems with in Control Point, bigotry and pick a frickin’ side would ya (Oscar Britton) are still present in Fortress Frontier.  But I may have a clearer view of the larger picture being written in this series.  Only book 3 Breach Zone will tell me if I’m close.

The heart of the Shadow Ops series is learning to cope with the changes brought about by unexpectable magical power manifestations.  Rumors abound, and people are scared.  Which leads to governmental manipulations and other ugliness well-known in this sort of fantasy world.

What Myke Cole brings to this is an inside look at what that chaos is like when the military and the governments try to handle change this massive.  Cole’s writing keeps things tense, and moving along.  The story he’s telling is one of great forces at play.

One of the big themes is how do you know what’s really the right thing to do, especially in the face of conflicting evidence and your own strong desires?  Shadow Ops has a very strong X-Men vibe to it.  People who manifest powers are subject to government control.  Fear is a strong motivator.

In Frontier Force, Alan Bookbinder is a rule-following Pentagon bureaucrat who manifests an unusual power.  Unlike Oscar Britton in Control Force, Bookbinder turns himself in and is subsequently sent to SOC in the Source.

Bookbinder and Britton have one thing in common, loyalty to the armed services, and to the government.  The difference is Bookbinder maintains that loyalty even when his very life is threatened.  Through this, Bookbinder becomes a leader people trust and follow into harrowing events.

Britton reappears in Fortress Frontier, but is pretty much as ineffective as he was in Control Force.  He has agency, but every step of the way, bad decision making dogs him.  The harder he tries to make up for his sloppiness, the worse it gets.  It’s difficult to like or understand what Britton is about.  His motivations are still selfish.

Bookbinder, on the other hand, takes the problem of being cut off from home and leads his troops through it.  And part of Colonel Bookbinder’s journey is across the Source to the Indian/Hindu version of FOB.  There he meets the Naga, snake like creatures who offer help but aren’t particularly forthcoming.

I wanted so much to like this book, and I did.  I liked it much more than Control Point.  But that doesn’t mean I can wholeheartedly recommend the series.

Still, Cole has earned enough of my readerly trust with his story-telling ability in The Armored Saint and The Queen of Crows that I’m willing to finish the trilogy with Shadow Ops:  Breach Zone.  Stay tuned.

 

Reviews

Review: Hugo Award Winner The Obelisk Gate

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The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

Title: The Obelisk Gate
Author:  N. K. Jemisin
Published: 2016
ISBN-13: 9780316229285
Publisher: Orbit Books
Twitter: @nkjemisin
Publisher’s Blurb: The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

As I read The Obelisk Gate, it became deeply personal, often driving tears to well up as I felt the searing pain of bullies, including parents whose lives can only be understood in retrospect.  Nassun’s search for identity and her confusing relationship with her father reminded me of my own confusing relationships. What matter the details, save that Nassun’s search for the warm glow of love she’d once felt transferred to another father figure?  Nassun finds herself the smartest, most talented in her small class, and one mistake nearly undoes the entire sense of community she’s found. It is a lifetime hard task to come to terms with one’s self and the way others react. And it can be brutal, as it proves to be for Nassun.  She, at least, has the orogene power within her to make it stop. Karma’s a bitch baby.

The Obelisk Gate is a coming together.  Factions find each other, comms welcome new citizens, old friends are reunited.  And yet, The Obelisk Gate is about division.  Factions find each other but begin plotting their war against other factions, the new citizens in comms cause disruption and new lines are drawn.

At its core The Obelisk Gate is about politics.  Political identity of the orogenes, who are welcomed with open arms in Castrima.  Family identity as Essun’s daughter, Nassun, wrestles with who her parents are and what that means to an eleven-year-old girl.  “Good” Guardian vs. “Not so Good” Guardian, but who determines good? Stone Eaters trying to set agendas. And a narrator who, it is revealed, plays an all too godly hand in Essun’s part in powering the obelisk gate, and catching the moon.

Nowhere is safe, everyone is struggling to dig in and survive the Season which, thanks to Alabaster’s creation of the Rift in The Fifth Season, will be the longest in history, lasting thousands of years.

We follow Nassun on the road with her father, Jija, going to a place he is convinced will cure her of her orogeny and return his little girl to him.  His resentful anger gets in the way of their relationship, his narcissism does not allow him to see Nassun is right in front of him and doesn’t want to be cured.  Her power is big, and she’s dedicated to learning everything she can about using it. Even after giving him a warning, showing him just how strong her power is and what she can do with it, Jija is still determined to make her into his ideal daughter.  Things don’t go well for Jija, and Nassun has no regrets

In Castrima, Essun gets pulled into the politics of the comm.  Seeking consensus and advice, Ykka is trying to keep human prejudices from becoming deathly problems.  Suspicion builds as Essun’s self-control frays around the edges. Alabaster holds the key knowledge Essun needs to reshape the world and give everyone a chance to survive.

And a very changed Schaffa is at the comm, Found Moon, where Nassun ends up.  His role with Essun, when she was Daya, is mirrored in his relationship with Nassun.  Only now, he expresses regret for the many horrible things did in the name of the Fulcrum.  In his work with the orogenes at Found Moon, and most especially with Nassun, he sets about making amends.

The Obelisk Gate is big and complex, dark and intense.  Just as The Fifth Season was filled with bigotry and violence, so too is The Obelisk Gate.  Orogeny stands as the proxy for all the ‘ism’s we face in our lives; sexism, homophobia, racism, classism, all of them.  And under the stress of the Season, fractures become breaks.

At the equator, Nassun, Schaffa, and their group which includes at least one stone eater.  In the south, Essun and her group introduced to us in The Fifth Season.  Thousands of years of history come into play, new elements are introduced, and identity politics rise to a fevered pitch.  One comm wants to absorb every resource it can while on raids. Castrima will have none of it. Stone eaters circle each other, and Nassun and Essun.

Alabaster’s final words for Essun are, “First a network, then the Gate.  Don’t rust it up, Essun. Inno and I didn’t love you for nothing.” While saving Castrima, she understands what he means, and as Castrima packs up to move northward into a now vacant comm which will support them for years, Essun knows how to do what she needs to do.

It is Nassun who has the last word.  “Tell me how to bring the moon home.”  In The Stone Sky, it will be up to mother and daughter to catch the moon, settle the rivalries, and stop the Seasons.  It will be an epic battle. Just as deep and intense as the preceding books. Just as complicated, and as simple as catching the moon.