Birds of a feather

Living in the Mojave Desert, I don't see a lot of waterfowl, but I did the other day. While on a walk through my subdivision, I encountered a large family from Canada. Papa Goose, Mama Goose, and their seventeen babies seemed hellbent on seeing the sights and making their way to a busy road at rush hour. With the help of several neighbors, I managed to scoot the birds from a side street to a green space, safe from cars. It was just another day in Las Vegas.

Review: The Artful Dodger

I admit I haven't read Oliver Twist. I haven't even seen the 1968 movie, the one that won six Oscars, including Best Picture.

Even so, I am vaguely familiar with Charles Dickens' classic tale about a gang of juvenile pickpockets in 1830s London. So when I saw that Disney Plus and Hulu were streaming a highly rated sequel to Oliver Twist in the form of an eight-part series, I jumped on it.

I'm glad I did. The Artful Dodger is not just good television. It is top-notch entertainment, the kind that is increasingly hard to find.

Set in Australia in the 1850s, Dodger follows the adult double life of Jack Dawkins, the leader of the original band of thieves. Now a surgeon who learned his trade in the Royal Navy, Dawkins tries hard to bury his criminal past and start a new life in a wild and rugged penal colony.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster stars as Dawkins, while David Thewlis and Maia Mitchell shine as Norbert Fagin and Lady Belle Fox, the people who complicate the Dodger's life. Fagin, Dawkins' surrogate father, tries to lure the Dodger back into a life of crime the moment he arrives in Australia. Belle tries to pick his brain. The bright, beautiful governor's daughter strives to become a surgeon in a world run by men.

Other characters, including Belle's family, rival surgeons, local officials, and even Oliver Twist himself, add spice to a riveting series.

Though I enjoyed the production from start to finish, I was drawn most to Dawkins' relationships with Fagin and Belle, which develop wonderfully in the series. Even the somewhat predictable ending was first-rate.

I would recommend the The Artful Dodger to any viewer who likes humor, history, and a compelling, fast-moving story. Rating: 5/5.

Unraveling a Revolution

The book will be a big one. With a projected length of 142,000 words, it will be bigger even than River Rising and The Memory Tree, the weighty twin tomes that anchor the Carson Chronicles series.

I admit that gives me pause. Authors are strongly advised to limit their books, even historical fiction works, to 100,000 words.

I won't with this one though. Like many writers, I believe that if you have a story to tell, you should tell it. You should develop every major character and narrative thread until you can develop no more.

In The Patriots, my twenty-fourth novel, I will do just that. I will dive deep into the lives of Noah and Jake Maclean, two orphaned brothers who travel from the Philadelphia of 2024 to the one of 1776.

Like most boys, Noah, 22, and Jake, 15, will not be able to resist a dangerous temptation that calls to them from their own property. They will enter a mysterious stone shed and venture to the American Revolution, where they will meet Ben Franklin, John Adams, Peggy Shippen, and the lovely daughters of a furniture maker.

Unlike September Sky, River Rising, The Lane Betrayal, and The Fountain, the first books of my last four series, The Patriots will focus more on people than events. It will focus on the brothers; sisters Abigail (20) and Rachel (14) Ward; and Douglas Maclean, the boys' great-uncle and the patriarch of a Scottish clan that goes back centuries.

It will also lay the foundation for a trilogy that spans the length of the revolution, a conflict I am covering for the first time. It will set the stage for more action-oriented stories in books two and three.

Because of the book's length, I don't expect to finish the first draft before July. I do expect to have the finished product out by October 1.

Credit: Spirit of '76, an 1875 oil painting by American illustrator Archibald MacNeal Willard, is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.