A Weaver's Bracelet

Edit: It's now for sale at etsy!
Edit Dec. 14, 2016: The first one sold out, but I've made another. 

At Deborah Harkness's website for the All Souls Trilogy one can find all sorts of multi-media tidbits inspired by the books, including some wonderful jewelry by Jennifer Cadsawan.  I can't do anything like that, but I can bead, and I was inspired by the magic of spell weavers in the book.  Over the course of the trilogy Diana learns to manipulate ten "ribbons" of magic, each a different color -- brown (earth), yellow (air), blue (water), red (fire), green (the goddess), purple (justice), gold (the sun), silver (the moon), and white and black (I forget what these two stand for, and I had to return the book to the library -- light and dark magic maybe?).  From there it was not hard to envision a ten-strand bracelet, with the colors woven together.

After briefly considering different types of beads, I settled on size 11 seed beads to keep it simple.  For silver and gold, I thought it would be nice visually and texturally to use the actual metals; silver chain was easy, since I have a bunch of it for different projects.  Gold, not so much, because it is expensive and not my favorite.  But then I remembered a set of thin gold chains I got ages ago, which would be about the right length; I picked the ropey one and I was all set.  A silver slide barrel clasp would do for a simple closure.

My initial plan was to weave the strands the way I would for any braid with more than three strands, by taking the leftmost one and weaving over and under the rest, repeating for the length of the bracelet.  But the results were not great, probably because the seed bead strands were not very flexible:

Coincidentally, this bracelet showed up on my pinterest feed, with instructions for the basketweave.  That resulted in a much nicer braid:

Painter's tape, by the way, is effective for temporarily holding beads and and strands in place.

The completed bracelet:

Despite carefully noting the order of the strands, I still managed to cross the red and blue ones one too many times at the end, something I did not notice until I had already attached them to the clasp with crimp beads and trimmed the excess cord.  Grumble.

Edit: It's now for sale at etsy!
Edit Dec. 14, 2016: The first one sold out, but I've made another.   

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

As soon as The Book of Life,the last volume in Harkness's trilogy, came out, I snapped it up from the library, and spent the next several nights staying up too late reading.  It was as good as the previous two, filled with action and adventure, science and history, and magic and romance.  The secrets in the titular Book of Life were what I expected, and I would have liked more information about the origins and history of vampires, witches, and daemons and the implications of their relationship to ordinary humans, but the story ended satisfyingly.  There were also hints that Harkness might be planning a sequel, so there's that.

As enjoyable as the trilogy was, however, it confirmed for me that I am generally not interested in modern vampire stories (with one notable exception, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian). Vampires are evil.  They are predators who prey on rational, intelligent beings, often in cruel ways, and their actions are a perversion of the Catholic Mass.  I have trouble seeing them as decent, let alone romantic, creatures.  Some creators try to address this thoughtfully.  Joss Whedon's Buffyverse, for example, posited that a lack of a soul was responsible for the evil and cruelty of vampires, and if one got his soul back, as Angel did, he would be remorseful and strive to be good.  But this explanation is ultimately unsatisfying -- where are the souls when they are not in vampires?  Why would a soul make a difference, when demons have souls, as do humans, both of whom have no trouble committing evil?  What about Spike, who as a result of a long period of moral evolution chose to do good and fight evil, and chose to get his soul back so that he could be an even better person?*

Other creators never really address the problem of evil at all, and leave it to individual vampires to choose to do good or evil or both, like everyone else.  Anne Rice took this approach (at least in the first couple of volumes), focusing on the personal cost and effects of vampirism.  It is also the approach Harkness takes, but she also goes to some pains to develop a vampire social contract of sorts, which as she puts it is about "law, honor, and justice"; mercy and charity have no role.  She creates an elaborate set of rules governing vampire behavior, but it ultimately boils down to "might makes right," and that is something I find neither attractive nor interesting.  Matthew, being the hero, is always striving to do the right thing, but that is more a vestige of his human life -- his Catholic faith -- rather than a trait of his vampireness.  He is concerned with notions of sin and atonement and forgiveness, but many other vampires think him rather odd in this, and their good deeds tend to extend only to protecting those they love rather than any abstract notion of decency or charity.

By contrast, the witchy society seems much more humanlike in its approach to morality (although we do not spend nearly as much time in their culture).  Which is not to say there aren't evil witches; there are, and those in power are slow to punish them, but they are all motivated by the usual reasons rather than a species-wide justification.  That, plus their neato magic, makes them far more interesting to me than the vampires.  I hope any sequel focuses more on their world, and that of the daemons who were rather short-changed in the trilogy.

*I recently read that Whedon has stated he had no real education in any religious traditions, and that explains the screwy theology of is world -- not just the soul issue, but demons who are nevertheless sometimes good, and more critically the existence of a great, overarching "First Evil" with no apparent good counterpart, something that is present in pretty much any real world religious or mythological system that stresses the fight between good and evil.

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Shadow of Nightis the second volume of Harkness's trilogy, and I enjoyed it just as much.  It got off to a slow start, as the first 200 pages are spent on Diana and Matthew acclimating to Elizabethan life.  Harkness goes into quite a bit of detail describing dress, culture, household and village functions, and all the famous people (of course) Matthew knew/knows.  But once the couple gets married for the third time (yes, really), and remembers why they went to 1590 in the first place, the novel picks up quite a bit.  We get a few more clues about the mystery of the alchemical book at the heart of the story, and hints at the true relationship among the different species.  Diana finally comes to terms with her magical heritage and begins to learn how to control it; it was gratifying to see her regain some agency, even managing to rescue herself from the obligatory peril. 

I'm greatly looking forward to the third volume, which is not yet out. Curses!

Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

I generally stay far, far away from paranormal romances.  I have never understood the romantic appeal of vampires and werewolves, I don't like the woobification of monsters to make them more palatable to modern American sensibilities, and I especially don't like the "weak, pathetic humans!" tone most of these novels end up taking.

And yet I kept reading good things about Harkness's A Discovery of Witches,so I bit.  And I'm glad I did -- this book was smart and fun.  The world-building was fascinating, the mystery at the core of the plot involves alchemy, history, and genetics (Harkness knows her stuff), and the hero and heroine were refreshingly honest with each other (impressive, given all the secrets everyone is keeping).  Harkness even managed to avoid Mary Sue territory, despite the fact that her heroine has dead parents, incredible professional success, unusual hair and eye color, and super-unusual and -powerful magic.

The novel isn't perfect -- I'd have preferred a little more ancient mystery and a little less romance, and I don't know why male vampires must be The Boss of Everything -- but I've already picked up the second volume of the trilogy (natch) from the library.