What are you, twelve?

Where did that come from?

The first scene I wrote yesterday was The Suck. Antony sitting around and being a spectator to history. It didn’t quite get me to quota, so then I started a new scene, where introducing his wife helped liven things up. Two sentences into today’s continuation, she verbally kicks him in the ass and asks just what he intends to do about the problems around him. So I send Antony off to pick a fight with Pym . . .

And he picks a fight.

Well, not quite. It isn’t his fault the scene almost devolved into a riot. But for the love of baby Jesus, man, you’re thirty-two. Aren’t you a little old for fistfights in the street?

LBR quota: Well, it was supposed to be all rhetoric, but some blood got in there.
Authorial sadism: Having your wife call you on your cowardice, I suppose.

Happy Book Day!

It’s late enough at night/early enough in the morning that I’m going to break my usual rule (it isn’t the next day until the sun has risen or you’ve slept), and declare the beginning of Midnight Never Come Book Day!

(If I’d really been on the irony ball, I’d’ve announced it at midnight.)

So: today you can officially walk into a bookstore and expect to find the book! Borders appears to be stocking it in what I consider to be large quantities, with copies both in the SF/F section (remember to look for a trade paperback) and — at least in this town — on the “New in Fiction” rack. Which is awesome.

As of today, you can also enter the competition! Short form is, there will be a series of mini-puzzles, for which there are hints scattered around the site. (Not all new or changed content is a hint, though; I sent in some belated modifications for the site, which are being instituted as fast as they can manage.) For every question you answer right, you will be entered into the contest. Check back regularly for updates!

Also, don’t forget my own mini-competition: if you send me a picture of my book in the wild, you’ll be eligible to win a copy of my short story “The Deaths of Christopher Marlowe.” You can post those here, or e-mail them to me at marie dot brennan at gmail dot com.

***

Review dump:

The verdict is in from Locus, and they liked me. “Brennan ably combines elements of danger, romance, and individual moral choices that could affect the fates of great realms, for a tale that’s rich in plot and character. She interweaves historic and fantastic details with scholarship, inspired acts of imagination, and a keen wit.” That’s another one to hug close and grin idiotically over.

John Ottinger at Grasping for the Wind has a few criticisms, but on the whole he enjoyed it: “Brennan’s ability to maintain historical accuracy while writing an exciting and fast-paced novel filled with elves, fairies, the Wild Hunt, and brownies makes this story worth reading.”

I don’t believe I remembered to quote from the Romantic Times review before. They gave it four stars, and said “This story of courtiers from different but parallel kingdoms is ripe with palace intrigue, Machiavellian double dealing and star-crossed love.”

I’ve also collected a couple of Amazon reviews, one two-star from a disappointed reader who prefers my first two books, one five-star from someone who enjoyed it a lot.

***

Not a review: I’m guest-blogging today for miladyinsanity, talking about travel and book research.

Happy Book Day!

one week in

7,932 words since June 1st, at a little over 1K every day. It’s a good start, and I’m on track to have 10K before I go driving off to California with kniedzw. Whether I get anything written on the road will be anyone’s guess; I can write while traveling just fine, but I can’t exactly take my research library with me in the car. Even if it’s a total wash, though, I’ll have 23K this month, and that’s fine.

I suppose now’s as good a time as any to outline the structure for this book. There are four days of the Fire, which I intend to scatter throughout the book. (Basically, this one will have four big flash-forwards instead of the ten flashbacks of MNC.) That means the rest of the story leading up to the Fire will also be in four parts. I’m aiming to have each part be roughly 20K, with roughly 5K for each Fire day, and the book is due at the beginning of October. Ergo, 25K each month will give me a completed draft in time (though without time for revision). That’s my baseline, the minimum I need to do. It isn’t precisely one part + one day every month, though, because I really need to save the Fire days until I’ve written everything that leads up to them; they’ll be written last. (However much I dearly want to get to Jack, and see how he works on the page.)

Progress so far: Antony is starting to find his own personality instead of borrowing Philip’s, which is good, because Philip would not make a good protagonist for this novel. Ben Hipley has randomly re-invented himself out of the NPC cast for Memento; I’m not sure why, but hey, sure. I can have a totally different character with the same name, if that’s what he really wants. The Short Parliament is about to start, which is very nearly the same thing as saying the Short Parliament is about to end. (Hence the name.) I, er, ought to read about that before I write those scenes.

The story is developing in my head at a very slow and deliberate pace, but that’s okay. Slow and steady wins the race.

LBR quota: except for that death in the first day of writing, it’s been all rhetoric. Which is fine. I think I can make it exciting enough. And if I can’t, well, I’m going to be Blowing Shit Up (by which I mean London) every 20K words, so there will be regular injections of Spectacle! and Excitement!
Authorial sadism: Sending Humphrey Taylor to the colonies because the protagonists are too soft to kill him themselves.

bitch, please.

Mildly curious, I followed this link to an article about culling down one’s book collection. It appears to part of a series wherein the writer chronicles the process of organizing her life. Okay, let’s go.

She is, by her own admission, a “total bibliophile.” Apparently her parents crammed 1,100 books into their apartment!

. . . er, okay, if you don’t have a lot of space (and they had four rooms in New York), then I suppose that’s a lot. The writer? Her book collection — the combined possessions of herself and her husband — “peaked at 600.”

Please.

By the end of the article, they’re down to 200. Our fiction collection consists of more books than her parents had at their incredible height. According to LibaryThing, we own more urban fantasy than this woman now has in her entire collection.

I’m not out to play a game of one-upsmanship; I’m sure there are people reading this who think our 2,260 books are a paltry few. But I just had to roll my eyes at the presentation of 600 as a huge pile of books that must be cut down for the salvation of one’s household. I don’t think the WaPo knows what a real bibliophile is.

sorry, your book is in another castle

Time-honored wisdom among writers says that it’s better not to respond personally to reviews. I agree with that; what I’d like to do is use a review as a jumping-off point to discuss something it made me think about.

I’ve gotten my first negative review. (Counting the Kirkus slam as a rite of passage, rather than a review. <g>) A reader on Amazon who had adored my first two books rated this one two stars, and explained his reasons.

Let me say straight-out: from my perspective, Midnight Never Come is the best book I’ve ever written. It is not flawless; if I thought it was, I’d kick myself, because the only way I could think like that is if I weren’t trying hard enough to improve. But I consider it more intricate and well-thought-out than either of my first two novels.

But that isn’t the point, is it? Quality, if we can even speak of that objectively, is not the major determinant of the reading experience. Midnight Never Come is not the book this reader wanted (and hoped for) from me. I’ve said to several people that you can read it through a variety of genre lenses (urban fantasy, historical, romance, political thriller) — but secondary-world adventure fantasy isn’t one of them. So while I think there are points of similarity, such as the espionage, that will attract some readers who liked the Doppelganger books, it all depends on what you attached to the first time around. There will be other readers who pick this up, wonder what the hell happened to the Marie Brennan they enjoyed before, and walk away — some of them permanently.

This? Drives writers crazy. Because it’s a balancing act for which there isn’t even a recognized “win” condition. Some forces want you to do more of the same; some want you to grow and change and try new things. It isn’t even a straightforward matter of readers on one side, writers on the other, because of course writers may want to keep exploring a world their readers aren’t responding to, or readers may get bored by a writer they perceive as stuck in a rut. What’s victory? Selling lots of books? But what if that comes at the cost of pursuing ideas you’re really passionate about?

Actually, I take back what I said. There is a win condition, and it’s called being Neil Gaiman. The man could probably write anything he wants to, and his fans would love him for it.

This is my third novel. It’s not set in the same world as my first two. This is officially my first encounter with the phenomenon: that every time I change tracks, I will lose readers whose sphere of interests don’t include this new thing. There’s nothing wrong with it (unless I lose so many readers my publisher drops me), and it doesn’t mean the disappointed readers are wrong. They just wanted something else than what I delivered. I may or may not find that the shift brings me within the ambit of a greater number of new readers. Someday, I’ll decide to shift again: rinse and repeat.

I can tell myself it’s natural, but it’s still saddening, realizing the choices I’ve made have disappointed a fan.

Come one, come all!

I’m posting this publicly to cast as wide a net as possible, but it’s only of direct interest to local people (for a suitably broad definition of “local”).

Next week, kniedzw will be loading up the car and Going West, preparatory to starting his new job. I’ll be driving with him, to split the task, and say hi to Bay Area folks; then I’ll be flying back to write a novel, pack, write a novel, have eye surgery, pack, write a novel, pack, pack, go to a con, pack pack packpackpack and eventually move.

BUT! Before we do that, we’re having a going-away bash. Because I’m dumb and was also out of town, I didn’t get the clubhouse reserved, so this will be at our place. If you ever hung out with kniedzw, or gamed with him, or were fed baked goods by him, and want to bid him farewell, come on by!

WHERE: Castle N (e-mail for directions, if you need them)
WHEN: Sunday, starting at 6 p.m., going until whenever
WHY: Because you’re going to miss him
WHAT TO BRING: A la the Boggan Birthday Bash, I’d greatly appreciate donations of drink, food, baked goods, and assistance dealing with the aftermath, so that we can keep kniedzw from doing any of that himself. I’m damned if he’s going to host his own going-away party, even if it takes thirty of us to stop him.

Feel free to pass this along to anyone not on LJ that might want to come.

justification

Working on building playlists for the novel looks like cat-vacuuming par excellence . . . until you realize that doing so has helped you figure out what’s changed in the faerie court between the last book and this one.

I am vindicated!

a sighting

My local Barnes & Noble has two copies of MNC on the shelf. (Two signed copies, now.) Which is another landmark in the Really Real Book progression. I’ve seen it out in the world for myself! In my home country, even!

Another victory: both my Gmail and sundell.net accounts are down to ten messages each, from the giant backlog created by my travels. I still have things I need to deal with, but the insurmountable pile has mostly been surmounted.

other reviews

While I was out of town, reviews also appeared for a couple of the venues my short stories have been published in.

Sherwood Smith (sartorias) liked issue #12 of Paradox, which includes “The Deaths of Christopher Marlowe.” The verdict on my story is that it’s “a taut, lapidary triptych,” and the verdict on me is that “Her scholarship is sure, her sense of pace impeccable.” Yay! (Don’t forget, you’re eligible to win a copy of that story if you send me a photo of Midnight Never Come in a bookstore. Or in your hot little hands, or whatever. Proof that it’s out in the world.)

Also, though I don’t believe the anthology Clockwork Phoenix is available yet — I think it’s debuting at Readercon — there have been a few advance reviews. Publishers Weekly says “all 19 stories have a strong and delicious taste of weird,” and Charles Tan at Bibliophile Stalker found it a solid, enjoyable antho. I’ll let you know when that one’s actually out.

unrelated

kniedzw has been posting honeymoon pictures to Flickr, so I shall, too. These are my most interesting or artistic shots from Rome, Delos, Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini, Istanbul, Ephesus, and Athens; the Pompeii pictures are on his camera, mine having gone belly up the night after Athens.

You will notice some duplication between his set and mine; we had a habit of taking extremely similar shots. Which isn’t a bad thing: sometimes one or the other of us got a better angle or frame on it.

Special to Lymond folks: there’s a picture of the Topkapi Palace harem.

Why don’t I ever do stuff like this in novels?

It’s all about:

1) Luring the bad guy and a few of his most powerful minions away from the warehouse

2) Curb-stomping a few of the remaining minions and blowing up the rest

3) Kidnapping a scientist out of the zombie-making bunker below the (now burning) warehouse

4) Stuffing a jet ski* into the freight elevator and snapping the cable so it falls a long long way and blows up the zombie-making bunker and what’s left of the warehouse

5) Recruiting the kidnapped scientist into working for me in my genetics lab/incipient cult.

I mean, srsly. Exploding jet skis. Which I think Johnnie used as an improvised melee weapon during the curb-stomping phase.

*We all know from Waterworld that jet skis are the most explosive object known to man.

back on the treadmill

Time to bring out this icon again, as I get properly underway with AAL. Last night’s writing was like pulling teeth, but that’s the natural result of fighting jet-lag long enough to put the words down. (Normally I don’t have this much trouble adjusting, but normally I don’t have seven hours’ difference and a cold to overcome.)

1,132 today. And, resurrecting the LBR tally: all rhetoric, today. But more fun than last night’s blood, because a) I’m awake and b) the random alderman I picked out of the 1639 flock is coming out with lines like “The king pisses away money as his father did — though at least he has the decency to piss it on war instead of drunkenness and catamites.”

Now to clean up the downstairs so we have somewhere to sit while gaming.

Monday morning countdown roundup

We’re in the home stretch for the U.S. release of Midnight Never Come.

June 9th, officially, but I know a handful of copies have already been sold in

various places around the country. If you send me a photo of the book on the

shelf between now and one week after the street date, I’ll enter your name in a

drawing for a special prize: a signed copy of Paradox #12, which contains my short

story “The Deaths of Christopher Marlowe.” (There’s absolutely no connection

between that story and this novel, aside from the time period, but you can have

fun imagining one for yourself.)

Also, those of you who prefer your novels in more portable format may be

interested to know that Fictionwise is advertising an e-book copy. I

wasn’t aware one was being issued, but apparently so.

***

If you were curious, yesterday’s post was an image of the promotional item my

publicist and I made for Midnight Never Come. It was sent to the

bookbuyers for stores in order to get them interested in the novel, and is, of

course, the thing for which I held the signature contest in February.

Want more? Why not try . . . <drum roll> . . . the website?

That’s right, folks: Orbit has put together a gorgeous website for the book.

Poke around and take a look at the goodies, and make sure you find the

semi-hidden link. It isn’t entirely finished yet; they’re doing a soft launch,

and will start rolling out the rest of the content on the 9th. If you come back

then, you’ll find a mini-game you can play, with some rather nice prizes to be

awarded.

***

With the book out in the UK and soon to be out here, reviews have started to

surface. My favorite pull-quote has to be the tag line from SFX Magazine: “Like John Le Carre if

he was obsessed with faeries.” (Alas, the review is not available online,

though it may be eventually.) They liked it, and read it through a political

thriller lens, which I find interesting. Not sure I can live up to a comparison with Le Carre, but hey. Anyway, I figure I’ll do occasional review round-ups here, whenever I reach a critical mass.

Myfanwy Rodman at The Bookbag read it the same way, calling it “a

historical thriller with a fascinating twist,” though one that starts a bit slowly.

Darren Turpin at The Genre Files found it “a highly-enjoyable mix of

Elizabethan and faerie politics and intrigue.”

Chris

Hyland, the Book Swede (who interviewed me last month) read it as a love

story, and flatters me immensely by saying, “What sets Marie Brennan apart

[from similar stories], then, is the quality of her writing, the complexities of

her plot, the characterisations, the world-building… everything” — though he, too, felt it opened slowly.

Mark Yon at

SFFWorld.com appreciated all my research, and didn’t find the romance as

off-putting as expected.

Elizabeth Bear

(aka matociquala), who has her own Elizabethan faerie novel

coming out next month, says of my characters that “These are not kinder,

gentler faeries. Really they’re not.”

Mervi Hamalainen at Curled

Up concurs, saying, “Midnight Never Come returns the fairies to their

roots: terrifying, alien, yet captivating at the same time.”

And finally, Debbie Chapman, a Waterstone’s bookseller, calls it “an amazing,

moving, murderous, magical tale.”

***

In other words, so far people are pretty much liking it.

(Except for Kirkus, of course.)

returning to the world of the internet-living

I am back home. Half a day and change later than I should have been — weather cancellations stranded us in Chicago last night — and horribly jet-lagged, but otherwise fine. (And, judging by the comments I’ve received so far, much more tan than anyone here has ever seen me.)

I have not read the Internet since May 6th. If you got married/had a sex change/moved to Laos/cured cancer/did anything else you would like me to know about, please say so in comments. ‘Cause God knows I’m not reading through the archives of all this stuff for the last three and a half weeks.

If you contacted me, I will be responding as soon as I can, jet-lag permitting.

Expect regular blogging to resume henceforth.

today’s adventure

Rode a donkey up the Cliffs of Moher-esque side of the Santorini volcanic caldera.

Hey, it beat climbing those 600 steps.

In my usual way of things, though, I neglected to remember that kniedzw had never been on a horse until after I convinced him to go on a donkey ride.

cruising

So far, I have:

Stood in the sacred lake where Apollo and Artemis were born. (Or at least stood with my feet in the depression that used to be the sacred lake until the French archaeologists drained it in the 1920s to save themselves from malaria.)

Viewed the spot where the Colossus of Rhodes probably stood.

Bathed my feet in the aquamarine waters of the Aegean.

So far? It’s going well.

rain day count

London: 0/8 days

Rome: 2/2 days

Something is seriously wrong with this picture. (Though, to be fair, the Rome rain days have been temporary sprinkles, not solid rain. But still: ROME. With rain. When London had nary a drop.)

Also, re: Vatican — buh.