I have always loved Katharine Kerr’s Daggerspell, which kicks off her first Fantasy quartet, the Deverry series.

The second, Westland series (also set in Deverry incidentally) also comprises four titles:

• A Time of Exile
• A Time of Omens
• A Time of War
• A Time of Justice

Recently, I was juxtaposing these titles with a phrase from a much-loved television series, Babylon 5. The phrase is “The Hour of Scampering” and is used by the (alien) Vorlon ambassador to describe the early evening, between work, home, and socializing, when human beings are particularly busy in the space station’s public forum, i.e. “scampering.”

(The phrase is used in Deathwalker, one of the finest episodes, imho, in the somewhat patchy Season 1.)

My juxtaposition involved cribbing the phrase, “a time of scurrying” to encapsulate the current process of moving from one section of the book to the next—the scurrying involved being the back and forth between the two as I realize that, “Oh yes, if the new section’s going to work this way, then that has to happen a little earlier.”

Ambassador Kosh, Babylon-5

All to ensure the setup has the right entry vector, which is, of course, a noble endeavour. The further I get from the initial crossover, though, the less scurrying is required, as accomplishing the “this” drives its own forward momentum.

By way of good news, there’s still a little scurrying currently, but I can feel the forward momentum building.