I mentioned in my last booklog update that I had thoughts about Ekaterin, which needed to be off in a separate post. This is that post; it contains spoilers for the Vorkosigan series, so I’m putting the actual content behind a cut.
In which two things don’t fit together as well as I feel like I’m supposed to think they do.
No, the shortness of this isn’t some April Fool’s joke. I was playing Dragon Age II this month.
Hey, look! I seem to have finalized cover art!
Y’all know what that means: it’s time for another “please make me an icon, because I suck at image manipulation” contest. Something featuring a crop or resizing or whatever of that cover, plus the title, like ceosanna did for A Star Shall Fall. Winner will get an ARC of the book when I have one, or a copy of Star, according to their choice.
Eeee! I can haz cover!
We’re in the final day over at , and bidding on my short story offer is up to $100. If you want a story written to your prompt from Japanese history or folklore, now is your chance.
Also, my friend unforth is doing a 1000 Cranes Project over on her craft blog. There’s a link there for one of the cranes being auctioned on , but with 999 cranes to go after that, there’s plenty of room for all.
And finally, this is kind of an awesome story about heroism during the tsunami. The post is written in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but with all due admiration for the courage and resourcefulness of Hideaki Akaiwa.
Diana Wynne Jones has passed away.
I deeply regret, as I knew I would, that I didn’t make it to the special Diana Wynne Jones convention in Britain a few years back. It was my one real chance to meet her, and honestly? If I could meet any writer in the world, I probably would have chosen her. Possibly even if “any writer in the world” is expanded to “in history, too,” because Shakespeare’s cool and all, but what would I say to him? His plays may be awesome, but Diana Wynne Jones is the one who made me into a writer.
It was Fire and Hemlock that did it. Polly and Tom telling their story, within the story about them, and the blurring between the two — it’s a story about stories, in many ways, because among other things the book is about “Thomas the Rhymer” and “Tam Lin,” too. I was nine when I read it, and when I put the book down, one thought stood out clearly, for the first time in my life: I want to tell a story.
I did get to tell her that, at least, via the proxy of Sharyn November, when her (I think) seventy-fifth birthday rolled by. Sharyn was collecting birthday messages, so I typed up the tale of how Fire and Hemlock turned the nebulous storytelling impulses so many children have into a firm intention, and lo and behold I am now a writer. But I would have loved to shake her hand, and to thank her for inspiring me to my purpose in life. I don’t think I write anything like her — I don’t think I write anything like most of the authors I really admire — but it all grew out of the little seed of hemlock she planted in my mind.
. . . to heck with the part of me saying, “um, this would be a huge project and I’m not sure you really have the time.” I think I will undertake to re-read her complete works, and to blog about them as I go. It’s the best tribute I can think to give.
That, and to keep on writing.
I was at FOGcon last weekend and ICFA this weekend, and in between I was busy, with the result that I am irretrievably behind on reading LJ and other such stuff. E-mail I intend to catch up on, but I’m declaring bankruptcy on blog posts; if there’s anything important or cool from the last week and a half that you think I should see, feel free to mention in the comments.
Bidding has begun on my short story offer. I forgot to mention before that I will probably try to sell the story, and money from that sale will go to Doctors Without Borders, so whoever wins this auction will get a double return on their buck.
(If you missed the original explanation of the auction, it’s here.)
The situation at Fukushima has me really, really worried. My fingers are crossed so tight they hurt, that the efforts to cool the reactions there will succeed.
A really good post laying out the basics of Japan’s response to the earthquake and tsunami.
The thing we need to bear in mind (other than the fact that Japan is a very long country, and most parts of it are hundreds of miles from the epicenter) is that there is no place in the world better-prepared for seismic trouble than Japan. Read through that post. Read about the checklists. Read about the architecture and the failsafes and the emergency warning systems. This is still a tragedy and a disaster, and no amount of human planning can completely mitigate that; ultimately, the planet is stronger than we are. But this would be a much larger tragedy and disaster if they hadn’t been ready for it. (Even the situation at the Fukushima reactors isn’t as bad as it could have been, though I can’t confirm if the writer of that post is right about the scale of leakage there. I hope he is.)
Remember this, the next time some politician in your locality or nation proposes cutting funding for emergency preparedness, be it earthquake, tornado, hurricane, volcano, blizzard, or whatever. It’s an easy cut to make in the short term, when you’re trying to make a political point about “fiscal responsibility.” But I put that inside sarcasm quotes because what you’re really doing is gambling that nothing bad is really going to happen, and sooner or later, you lose that bet. Japan knows better than to gamble on that; they’re home to some absurdly high percentage of the world’s earthquakes. But other countries — like the U.S. — aren’t so sensible, and places like New Orleans pay the bill.
I want to be more like Japan. I live in California, and I want to believe my state is equally ready for when the Hayward Fault blows. But I don’t think we are.
There is, as you might expect, another LJ charity auction underway, at . There are many things on offer there, but this one is mine: a short story to a prompt of the winner’s choosing, drawn from Japanese history or folklore.
I’ve set the minimum bid at $50 because unlike the Onyx Court auctions of the past, this time I’m guaranteeing a fully-written short story. Having never offered something like this, I don’t know if that’s too high and I’ve just scared you all off, or it’s too low and you’re going to jack the price way up in bidding. (Since this is for charity, I hope it’s the latter.) Instructions for bidding (or offering) are here, and the auction will run until Saturday the 26th.
Categories of offer: art and artistry, audio work, interesting stuff, food, graphics, words. Go forth and bid, for a good cause.
. . . or those who didn’t hear me announce it there:
I have a new book deal.
Three books for certain; the series may run as long as five; title of either the first book or the entire series — haven’t decided yet which one — is A Natural History of Dragons. They are the memoirs of Isabella Trent, Scirland’s foremost lady adventurer and dragon naturalist, and cover her illustrious career traveling the world to study dragons (and getting into large amounts of trouble along the way).
As you might guess from the “Scirland” bit, this is a secondary-world fantasy, albeit one based on the real-world nineteenth century. Hallelujah, I get to make stuff up. There will still be research, of course — there is always research — but it will be of a more compost-y sort; I’ll read stuff, get the flavor in my head, and then make up something in an appropriate vein. You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to that part.
I came up with the idea for this series just before the first round of Novel in 90, several years ago, and it should tell you something that I wrote about thirty thousand words of it in a rather short space of time, before stalling out on account of not having figured out my metaplot. In the interim, I’ve made progress on that problem, and am very eager to get back to the story. The narrative voice is just a delight to play with. In celebration of the deal, here’s an excerpt, from the foreword to the first volume of Isabella’s memoirs:
Not a day goes by that the post does not bring me at least one letter from a young person (or sometimes one not so young) who wishes to follow in my footsteps and become a dragon naturalist. Nowadays, of course, the field is quite respectable, with university courses and intellectual societies putting out fat volumes titled Proceedings of some meeting or other. Those interested in respectable things, however, attend my lectures. The ones who write to me invariably want to hear about my adventures: my escape from captivity in the swamps of Mouleen, or my role in the great Battle of Keonga, or (most frequently) my flight to the inhospitable heights of the Mrtyahaima peaks, the only place on earth where the secrets of the ancient world could be unlocked.
Even the most dedicated of letter-writers could not hope to answer all these queries personally. I have therefore accepted the offer from Messrs. Carrigdon & Rudge to publish a series of memoirs, chronicling the more interesting portions of my life. By and large these shall focus on those expeditions which led to the discovery for which I have become so famous, but there shall also be occasional digressions into matters more entertaining, personal, or even (yes) salacious. One benefit of being an old woman now, and moreover one who has been called a “national treasure,” is that there are very few who can tell me what I may and may not write.
Beyond this point, therefore, lie foetid swamps, society gossip, disfiguring diseases, familial conflicts, hostile foreigners, and a plenitude of mud. You, dear reader, continue on at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart — no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments — even at the risk of one’s life — is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten. If my humble words convey even a fraction of that wonder, I will rest content.
Expect much babbling over the next few months about Darwin and Stanley and Isabella Bird, who actually wasn’t the source of my protagonist’s name, but it’s a nice coincidence nonetheless.
The next post in the “writing fight scenes” series has been delayed by the necessity of scanning in a few things for illustrative purposes, but in the meantime, have a video:
It’s a nice demonstration of the tactics that prevail between a rapier and a longsword, as well as a few other technical matters that we’ll get to in future posts. In fact, I may well refer back to this as an example later on.
Okay, I haven’t had my head screwed on straight enough this year to make an offer for , but I can make a late-but-not-quite-too-late plug for checking out its auctions. There’s a lot of good stuff being offered there, and after this May the program is going to expand to help fans of color attend any SFF convention, not just WisCon. So take a gander over there and see if you find something you like; bidding ends tomorrow.
I need a piano icon for this, not a French horn.
Bear McCreary, composer of the utterly freaking awesome Battlestar Galactica score, has put out a book of piano sheet music for the series. It includes seventeen solos (two in both simplified and advanced forms), plus one piano duet (“Kara Remembers”) and one piece for piano and soprano (“Battlestar Operatica”).
A lot of really good stuff is here. “Kara Remembers.” “Prelude to War.” “The Shape of Things to Come.” Some of my favorite pieces are missing, but they’re largely the ones that don’t suit themselves to the medium: “The Signal” may be Totally Badass, but it is also Totally Percussive, and would make an abysmal piano solo. Probably the only thing I really want that isn’t in the book is an arrangement of “Gaeta’s Lament;” you might be able to make that one work without the drums. But hey, maybe he’ll put out a second book later.
I haven’t yet gotten to play any of the stuff, as I lack a piano. Fortunately, teleidoplex‘s new place has one! So I will report back later. The report will likely document how this book handed my ass to me; it’s been fifteen years and more since I played seriously, and the look of some things in here makes me want to hide under the piano bench and wibble to myself. But I have to try. I like trying to pick pieces out by ear, but it’s a lot more satisfying to play a proper arrangement.
George R. R. Martin has an announcement.
As a professional, this is fascinating to me. They have set a publication date of July — in this year — for a book he says he isn’t done with yet. By contrast, I finished With Fate Conspire in September of last year, did copy-edits in January, and will be getting page proofs in March, for a street date at the end of August. I know the reasons for that schedule, and in no way begrudge them; a lot of factors go into determining what gets done when. But it’s fascinating to see how quickly it can all go, when the publisher decides to push.
[This is part of a series analyzing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels. Previous installments can be found under the tag. Comments on old posts are welcome, but please, no spoilers for books after Crossroads of Twilight, as that’s the last book I read before starting this project.]
After reading A Crown of Swords, I found myself realizing that I organize the series into four generalized groupings, based on the narrative momentum. It begins with the Good Four, which are The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, and The Shadow Rising. Each has its flaws, but on the whole, they’re the books in which the scope and complexity of the story manages to be a feature rather than a bug. They’re followed by the Wobbly Three — The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, and A Crown of Swords — during which, as I’ve documented in past posts, the structural decisions made during the Good Four start to have destabilizing consequences for the pacing and shape of the narrative. Those three do still achieve interesting forward progress on the plot, though, despite their increasingly swampy nature.
This month, however, we start in on the Bad Three: The Path of Daggers, Winter’s Heart, and (god help me) Crossroads of Twilight.
The boundary between the Wobbly Three and the Bad Three is indistinct, and may well owe its placement to the fact that I had to wait two years for The Path of Daggers to come out. I don’t entirely think so, though. It seems to me that, although we’ve been running into increasing structural problems since TFoH, this is the first time that the shape of an individual volume has fallen like a badly-made souffle. There’s no arc to this book, no feeling of growing tension or climax at the end. The most exciting stuff happens around pages 100-150 and 300-350, but the book is 591 pages long. The actual ending coasts along mildly for a time before saying without warning, “oh, by the way, some shit,” and then you’re left staring at the Epilogue.
This gets, um, very ranty. I told you I call these the Bad Three, right?
You know that poll I did before, on what kind of waiting is best?
This kind is — the kind where I’m waiting to share interesting news with you guys. Because really, then I’m making you wait, with my cryptic posts and all. Offloading the irritation, as it were. Much better than hanging in limbo myself, don’t you agree?
What? Why are you glaring at me like that?
^_^
Continuing my quest to read all the fiction!
Seriously, I have read more fiction in the first two months of this year than in the entirety of last year — possibly the last two years. (Presuming we don’t count all the Victorian lit I speed-read while hunting for a title, and really, we shouldn’t count it, because that stuff was going in one eyeball and out the other.) Eventually these posts will include some nonfiction, but for now, I am wallowing in made-up stories, and it is glorious.
I averaged a book every two days, though admittedly, some of them are novellas.
HAH. I have ridden from Stamford Bridge to Hastings in six days written 6,410 words today and KILLED THE NOVELLA DEAD.
Apparently February is my month for writing novellas. Deeds of Men was written two years ago. I kind of hope it’s another two years before — or longer — before I try to write another one.
Courtesy of lunch with my husband, I give you The Lion in Winter (preferentially the Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn version), with the characters re-cast as Changeling sidhe of various Houses:
