…in the heights of Cedar City last bloomed untrammeled by late snow and frost?

Not this year, although, so far as the lilacs are concerned, this spring has been a half-glass proposition because the lilacs actually got to bloom, but the weather got cold enough that while the blooms were gorgeous, the frost nipped them to the degree that there was no fragrance.

That’s a first in thirty years.

When you live at 6,000 feet between two mountain ranges and near the top of a sizable hill, you come to expect extremely variable weather, as well as frequent high winds.

We’ve had springs where the lilacs avoided the unpredictable inclement weather and they bloomed and perfumed the yard, and springs where they were snowed out or frozen and we had neither blooms nor fragrance. And quite a few springs where they budded and the buds immediately froze enough that when they thawed, they just dried up without opening. And even a spring or two where the wind was severe enough to blow off the blooms before they fully opened.

But full blooms with no fragrance? Never before.

Then, again, we’ve seen a lot this year that we never thought we’d see, and it’s not just here. Even Paris was just bombarded with intense hail and flash floods. Why should the lilacs of Cedar City be immune?

So… I’ll wait for next year and hope for both blooms and fragrance.

What’s with Boeing?

Not only did the aircraft manufacturer create a disaster by failing to inform buyers of the 737 Max-9 that the new version of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was considerably different from previous systems, but Boeing also initially failed to inform the FAA. As a result, two crashes killing 346 people ensued, and the 737 Max aircraft were grounded for 20 months, during which time the FAA lifted Boeing’s ability to issue airworthiness certificates for individual aircraft. In July 2024, Boeing pleaded guilty to criminal charges regarding the fatal accidents.

In January of 2024, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 suffered a mid-flight blowout of a plug filling an unused emergency exit, causing rapid decompression of the aircraft. The FAA grounded some 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9s with a similar configuration for inspections.

Previously, in 2018, a $3.9 billion contract was awarded to Boeing to build two new 747-8 aircraft for use as Air Force One. The two aircraft were to be delivered by December 2024, but subsequent delays by Boeing led to that being pushed back to 2028, with another delay announced earlier this year pushing delivery back to 2029 or later. This tends to raise questions, given that the basic 747-8 that is the starting point for the new Presidential jet currently goes for around $400 million, and Boeing claims it can’t come anywhere near the contract price.

Boeing has also suffered problems with the 787 Dreamliner, including manufacturing flaws with the fuselage, battery fires, and significant production issues in South Carolina, with numerous flaws found in quality assurance checks.

The Boeing 777, particularly the 777X variant, was projected to enter service in 2020, but technical problems have delayed entry until 2025, at the earliest.

In the military area, Boeing had restructure the KC-46A Pegasus, designed for aerial refueling, in order to redesign its remote vision system due to visibility problems that could affect stealth aircraft refueling, resulting in significant cost overruns, totaling billions in losses for Boeing due to fixed-price contracts.

Multiple other programs, including the T-7A Red Hawk jet trainer, have faced substantial delays. For instance, the T-7’s critical design review was pushed back by nearly two years. Since its introduction, the V-22 Osprey has been involved in accidents that have resulted in at least 62 fatalities. This figure includes incidents from the 1990s through to recent years.

In addition, the Boeing Starliner is not only behind schedule, but suffered multiple technical issues, including propellant system valves, flammable tape, parachute issues, helium leaks, and propulsion system design vulnerabilities, which led it its being not safe enough for the manned return flight.

And Boeing’s reward for all these disasters?

An apparent award from Trump and DOD to develop and supply the next generation F-47 fighter.

So much for fiscal responsibility and competence.

Over the span of more than a few decades of voracious reading, admittedly more in science fiction and fantasy, but also in other fiction genres, including, horror of horrors, standard literature, I’ve occasionally run across dogs, but never across a dachshund. I searched Amazon and B&N and found exactly one “adult” book featuring a dachshund, and a few children’s books, and I had to wonder about the absence of dachshunds, those fiercely loyal protectors of those they love.

At times, they can be too fiercely loyal, because we’ve seen dachshunds go after German shepherds, horses, elk, and deer, not to mention unwanted or unannounced intruders. Yet they’re usually portrayed, when portrayed at all in other media, as comical “weiner dogs” or ferocious ankle-biters.

As some of my readers know, I have upon occasion committed fictional dachshundry, that is, included a dachshund in my work, three of them in fact, if one reads closely. The latest commission of that literary crime was a short story – “The Unexpected Dachshund,” which appeared in Instinct: An Animal Rescuers Anthology, published in 2023.

That story was inspired by our latest and youngest dachshund, who turned out to be very unexpected in more than a few ways, which I’ll not detail here, except to say that he continues to display the unexpected, both in similar and in different ways than Rudy, “The Unexpected Dachshund” of the story.

Earlier, in Haze, one of my hard SF novels, I also included Hildegarde, one of our earlier dachshunds, or actually a painting of her, as a silent companion to Major Keir Roget, as well as one other dachshund, in his efforts to bridge more than a few gaps between disparate future cultures.

So… why aren’t there more dachshunds in fiction?

I find the treatment of religion in fiction quite interesting, and I have to say that of all the treatments I have seen, the fictional religion of the world of the Imager series is the most appealing to me. If I were to choose a religion from the fictions I read, this would be the one. Is there a “real world” religion that you drew from to create this faith?

Although I don’t have a degree in divinity studies, I’ve studied quite a few religions and their histories over the years, and I’m not aware of any religion like that in the Imager Portfolio. That doesn’t mean there’s not, but if there is, I haven’t run across it.