Sometimes the organization of the New Worlds Patreon doesn’t work out as tidily as I might like. Since I’ve said my bit on violent crimes (sexual assault having been covered previously), instead we’re wrapping up the month with something that more belongs back with the theft essays from the start of this Patreon year: smuggling! Comment over there.
Woke up today to an alert from my publisher that due to a COVID outbreak at the warehouse, the release date for The Game of 100 Candles has been pushed back to March 7th. My apologies to everyone, but you know how it goes!
Yoon Ha Lee has mentioned this quartet of books several times over the years, reminding me that I loved them as a kid and prompting me to re-acquire the series to see if it holds up. (The four volumes are Prince of the Godborn, Children of the Wind, The Dead Kingdom, and The Seventh Gate.) My recollection, at a distance of nearly thirty years, was that it had amazing worldbuilding and an ending that kid!me had kind of a “Jesus, Grandpa, what did you read me this thing for?” reaction to, but which I suspected was actually kind of amazing in ways I didn’t properly appreciate at the time.
Reader, I did not misremember.
Plot summary first: the declining empire of Galkis is under threat from without and from within, and their only hope is for someone to go on a quest to free their prophecied Savior from a prison whose seven keys are in the keeping of seven sorcerers (well, five sorcerers and two sorceresses). This is 100% unabashed Plot Coupon territory, a reason for Prince Kerish-lo-Taan, his half-brother Forollkin, and the companions they pick up along the way to roam through nearly the entire map collecting inventory items until they have the full set . . . but two things significantly mitigate the cheesiness and predictability of that plot. The first is just what it means in practice for them to be obtaining those keys, and the second is how it all resolves in the end, which is not at all what you might expect (hence kid!me’s reaction).
Before I get to that, though, the worldbuilding. When I bought copies of the books, they were shockingly short; the longest is still less than 250 pages. How much setting richness, I wondered, could possibly be squeezed into such a small space?
No discussion of violent crimes would be complete without murder, so this week, the New Worlds Patreon takes a swing in that direction. Comment over there . . .
Another week, another round of violent crimes at the New Worlds Patreon — in this case, assault and battery. Comment over there . . .
We interrupt my drafting of The Market of 100 Fortunes (and also my edit letter for The Waking of Angantyr just arrived (plus the copy-edits of Labyrinth’s Heart will be here Real Soon Now (welcome to my January))) to announce that my story “Constant Ivan and Clever Natalya” is up at Beneath Ceaseless Skies! If those names look familiar, it’s because they’re folkloric figures referenced in the Rook and Rose series; having referenced them, I felt inspired to turn around and actually write this story. Which means, yes, that this is me going Full Metal Folklore, in a tale of a challenge set for a year and a day, horses of the dawn and the dusk and the mountains and the sea, a trickster heroine and a good-hearted hero, and also some prophetic turtles. I hope you enjoy it!
What a way to start off 2023 . . . but my loyal New Worlds patrons voted for violent crime this month, so here we go! First up is abduction — including the variants where it wasn’t actually a kidnapping, or it was but the law is on the kidnapper’s side . . . comment over there.
I’ve been busy enough for . . . a while . . . that it took me longer than it should have to do this, but:
By which I mean, I have put together my own U.S. print edition, after years of ebook, U.K. edition, or used copies of the original version being the only way to get your hands on a physical volume. You can currently obtain it from Amazon if you want (note that I get a commission on that link), but it’s also available from Barnes and Noble and Book Depository, and may filter out to other retailers in time.
And yes, the others will follow. In Ashes Lie is on the way next, and then later this year I’ll be reissuing A Star Shall Fall and With Fate Conspire in joint ebook and print editions. For the first time in a decade, the whole Onyx Court series will be fully available again!
Quite a few of the books I read in December were either novellas or novels so short their actual word count might be in the novella range — in a few cases, even shorter than that . . . but even with that having been said, I read a metric ton last month. And bounced off nearly half as many books in their first fifty pages or so, which at least had the salutary effect of clearing out my wishlists a tiny bit. (This was made easier by library ebooks, especially while I was in Massachusetts for the holidays.) If I could keep this up, in a year my wishlists might be of a reasonable length!
. . . I am not going to be able to keep this up for an entire year.
BTW, a question for you all: the last few months I’ve been writing longer bits for each book. On the one hand, that seems good; on the other hand, I’m halfway to novelette territory with this post. Is it too much, do you think, or do you like the increased detail? Lemme know — I want these to be useful to other people as well as myself.
In 2020/2021, I think, I began saying to people “may next year be better than this one” or “may this year be better than the last” (depending on timing). That was absolutely driven by the pandemic and other woes, but honestly, isn’t it a worthwhile sentiment every time the calendar flips over?
So whether 2022 was good for you or bad, the best year yet or the worst year ever: may 2023 be better for you all. Happy New Year!
