Bit of a belated announcement, but in an hour and a half (4 p.m. PST), I’ll be interviewed on the Sword & Laser podcast. If you have a question you’d like me to answer, you can post it here! (A Natural History of Dragons is the general topic, but there are already questions about other things, too, so I don’t think you’re confined to only that book.)
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I’ve been scarce around here because I’m head-down in the third book of the Memoirs, but I do feel compelled to brag a little bit more. π
The big thing is the Sword and Laser podcast (also posted here), which gives a brief but glowing review of A Natural History of Dragons. Why is this a big thing? Well, apart from the fact that they’ll be interviewing me soon, check out the URL on that first link. They’re partnered with BoingBoing, which means that for a little while yesterday, their review was posted on the front page of BoingBoing.
I don’t know what that did to my sales, but I bet it was pretty good. ^_^
And then you’ve got Mary Robinette Kowal saying exceedingly nice things over on Book Smugglers, and Liz Bourke singled it out as one of her favorite books of the year, and so did Juliet Kincaid, and y’all, this is so totally the best thing I could have when we’re nine days from the solstice and I’m in the Middle of the Book and everything is conspiring to make me have no energy and just want to sleeeeeeeeep. (Well, that and caffeine. Of which I have some in the fridge.)
Now if you’ll pardon me, I have to go chop a character’s hand off.
(No, I’m not telling you whose.)
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A number of you probably know about this by now, but: NPR has included A Natural History of Dragons in their Best of Year . . . Venn diagaram . . . Oort cloud . . . not-actually-a-list . . . thingy.
Basically, although it looks like a list, what they’ve done is go the tag route. That’s the “science fiction and fantasy” tag, but if you click on ANHoD there, you’ll find it’s also tagged “love stories,” “for history lovers,” and “it’s all geek to me.” (You can also read Annalee Newitz’ recommendation.) Anyway, this is pretty awesome — like, “it has apparently had a measurable effect on sales” levels of awesome.
Plus there’s also this: A Natural History of Dragons was picked as one of the top 15 books of the year by Slate.com’s book editor Dan Kois. Put that together with the Goodreads semifinalist thing, and the fact that there are still new reviews coming in at a steady pace, and, well, see the title of the post. Quite chuffed. Quite, quite chuffed. It’s good encouragement to have as I tackle the dreaded Middle of the Book for #3.
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In the course of contacting people who had bid in the Philippines disaster relief auction, I realized that most of the mad rush had been for the ARCs of The Tropic of Serpents (surprise!), with only some going toward A Natural History of Dragons. There are two copies of that left; the asking price is $10, but thus far people have been paying $20 and up. It’s a good cause, so I have no compunctions about using peer pressure to encourage you to donate more than the baseline. ^_^ (Really, I should have had the good sense to list them at $20 to start with. I just plugged in my usual “I’m looking to get rid of some of this stock” prices without thinking it through.)
So yes: two copies left. Signed and personalized, if you wish! And good causes. So go forth and bid.
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Seven and a half years with my books being only ink on the page or pixels on the screen, and now I have two audiobooks landing atop one another. π
Remember me mentioning that giant deal Book View Cafe signed with Audible? Well, now you can listen to Lies and Prophecy, too! Different narrator than A Natural History of Dragons (and by the way, I’ve listened to the sample for that one now, and it’s fabulous), and it’s likely that my other project will get yet a different reader — especially since the pov in that one is male.
Did I mention that I have a third project with them? No? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see what that one is. π
I do, by the way, still have plans for a print edition of Lies and Prophecy. I’m dependent on the assistance of others for that, though, so it will have to wait for a moment when somebody can spare the time and energy to help. In the meanwhile, the ebook isn’t going away. π
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A Natural History of Dragons is now an audiobook.
Actually, it’s been an audiobook since Friday, but I was busy running around doing other things and didn’t manage to post about it right away. And then it was the weekend, so I waited. Mondays need fun things to liven them up, don’t you think?
I haven’t yet heard the thing myself, but I did correspond with the narrator beforehand, and based on that I expect she did an excellent job. She asked all the kinds of questions you’re supposed to hope your narrator asks, like how to pronounce things and whether you have any models in mind for what the voices should be like and so on. (In fact, her pronunciation of the names is probably better than mine, since my instructions included a lot of things like “this is how I say it, but it’s supposed to sound like French and I’m terrible at that so ignore me if I’ve got it wrong.”)
So if you’ve been waiting for the chance to listen to the book — those of you with driving commutes or gym workouts or such — now you can!
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You know how I said that A Natural History of Dragons was in the semifinal round for the Goodreads Choice Awards?
Apparently it wasn’t in the first round. It was, instead, one of the top five write-in candidates during the first round, and thus got added for the semifinal.
That? Is really cool. I don’t know how the write-in votes stacked up against the ones cast for first-round nominees, but the fact that people remembered it well enough to vote for it off their own bat is very flattering.
I think voting ends tomorrow, so if you want to cast your vote, you still can.
In other news, I was trying to make a paper shell for my inflatable globe so that I could finally work out where all the continents are in Isabella’s world, when it occurred to me that what I really needed was a spherical whiteboard. So there’s a white beachball that should be arriving here in the next few days, and I’ll be putting the water-soluble markers we bought for drawing on the D&D battle map to an exciting new use. π
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The death toll and destruction in the Philippines have been nothing short of horrific. The LJ community FandomAid has put together a fundraiser — not an auction but just a “Buy It Now” sale. Since my time is limited, I’m offering stuff that already exists, to whit, books.
Offer #1: signed ARCs of A Natural History of Dragons
Offer #2: signed ARCs of The Tropic of Serpents
There are five copies of each on offer (because that’s all I have left of ANHoD, and about all I can spare of TToS). The ARCs have full-color covers and all the interior illustrations, but not the maps; inscriptions can be personalized on request. The price is $10 in the US, $15 overseas, and the books will go on a first come, first served basis. You just make a donation to one of the approved charities — there’s a list here.
If you want to donate more, please do. They need it.
And if those offers don’t float your boat, browse the post for more. There’s eleven pages of comments already, and more to come, I’m sure.
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A Natural History of Dragons has been sent for a fourth printing.
Go, Isabella, go!
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It’s taken me about a week to regenerate much brain, with most of what I could spare going to working on the next of the Memoirs. But I have some now, and so you get a news batch!
First of all, A Natural History of Dragons is in the semifinal round for Best Fantasy of 2013 over on Goodreads. I’m not saying you should go vote for it or anything. I’m just, y’know, mentioning.
you should totally go vote for it
Next up, Book View Café has a fun new anthology out: Mad Science Café. This debuted while I was out of the country, so I’m a bit behind the curve in announcing it, but it’s pretty much what the title would lead you to expect, i.e. lots of stories about Science Gone Wrong (Or Very, Very Right). It reprints my story “Comparison of Efficacy Rates for Seven Antipathetics As Employed Against Lycanthropes,” aka the Werewolf Fake Academic Paper story, so if you missed it when it first came out in Ekaterina Sedia’s Running with the Pack, here’s your chance!
I’m also in another anthology! Apex Magazine has put out The Book of Apex: Volume 4, which collects fifteen issues’ worth of the magazine, including my own “Waiting for Beauty.” That one’s available in print as well as electronic formats.
Speaking of anthologies (no, we’re not done yet), there’s an excerpt from “Centuries of Kings” up at Bookworm Blues. Because I was out of the country when that went up, the Kickstarter linked is over and done with (after successfully raising its target and more). But still, you can get a taster of the story, which will be in Neverland’s Library.
And finally, not about me: Mike Allen (![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
time_shark), editor, poet, and fiction writer, has a novel out! The Black Fire Concerto, about which people have said many good things. It has a blurb from Tanith Lee! “A prize for the multitude of fans who relish strong Grand Guignol with their sword and sorcery.” Mike is, of course, the fellow who has brought you all four Clockwork Phoenix anthologies, not to mention Mythic Delirium and other such projects. If you dig horror, you should definitely check this out.
. . . did I mention that A Natural History of Dragons is up for a vote? ^_^
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You know how I got the World’s Best Cover Art ™ for A Natural History of Dragons?
Well, I just noticed that you can buy prints of it from the artist, Todd Lockwood. I have one of the limited edition giclees, myself — or rather, I have #1 of them. π It’s lovely. So if you want one of your own, they’re available!
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Because late on a Friday is the best time to put out pieces of major news. π
Many of you know that my intent has always been for the Memoirs of Lady Trent to be a five-book series, of which Tor had already purchased the first three. Well, as of today I am allowed to tell you that now we’re set for all five: they have offered a contract for the remaining two, ensuring that the entirety of Lady Trent’s story will be told.
And! Bonus!
They have also made an offer for a third, unrelated book. That won’t be coming out until after this series is done, so it’s years off yet; don’t look for me to be talking about it all that much here. (Especially since it’s entirely possible that three or four years from now, we’ll decide that it ought to be something else than what we’re planning on right now.) But if you want a teaser, well, let’s just say it might be inspired by this song and involve a few weeks of research here. ^_^
So yeah, I’m bouncing over here. How about you?
I meant to include this with my birthday post, since I have a long-standing tradition that I’m allowed to be unreservedly egotistical on my birthday. π The day before, Annalee Newitz posted this faboo review of A Natural History of Dragons on io9 — which, given the magnitude of that site’s readership, is quite a shiny thing to receive.
It will motivate me to crawl through the salt mines of page-proofing The Tropic of Serpents. π
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The Ada Initiative, which “supports women in open technology and culture,” is running a fundraising drive. They’re currently about seventeen thousand dollars short of their goal, with four days to go.
I read the reviews for A Natural History of Dragons, and I see a lot of readers mentioning how much it means to them that Isabella is a scientist, and how resonant they find her struggle against the restrictions placed on her gender. As much as I’d like to say that struggle is over today, let’s face it: we as a society aren’t that perfect. Women still face obstacles on that path, and harassment at the end of it; especially in the open-source tech world, there’s a lot of lower-level primate chest-thumping that makes the environment kind of toxic to women (and to men who like the idea of having women in their community). That’s one of several things the Ada Initiative — named for Ada Lovelace, of course — works to counteract.
So if this is the kind of thing that matters to you, and if you can spare a bit of money, please consider donating. There was a matching donation offer from Jacob Kaplan-Moss, up to $5000, but I think we may have burned through that already, or near to it — the meter had more than twenty-five thousand dollars to go when I saw that announcement yesterday. But it’s still true that if you donate $128 (whether in a lump sum or installments), you get this lovely pendant, which is indeed “schwag done right.”
Let’s see if we can’t get them over the finish line.
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1) Sure, I’ll be kind and put the big one first. I’ve sold a story to Tor.com! “Mad Maudlin,” a novelette based on the folksong variously known as “Bedlam Boys” and “Tom o’Bedlam.” It won’t be published until late this year or early next, but I’m extremely pleased nonetheless.
2) One straggler from the ANHoD blog tour: an interview with me at LibraryThing, wherein (among other things) I divulge how kniedzw and I approached the most important question one must consider upon moving in together: whether to combine libraries or not.
3) Latest post at BVC is on superstitions.
Edited to add:
4) A Natural History of Dragons is #8 on the Locus bestseller list for May. Go, little book, go!
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Okay, this is really nifty. The blog Paper/Plates bills itself as “exploring the world through food and literature” . . . and someone there just posted a review of A Natural History of Dragons, followed by a recipe for a vegan alfredo sauce inspired by the book. (On the grounds that Isabella’s lifestyle does not fit her culture’s expectations.)
I think fanworks in general are cool, but I never thought anybody would make a pasta sauce for one of my books!
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Time for a post up at BVC, on spells and folklore.
Also, I’m participating in “Women in SF&F” month at Fantasy Book Cafe, along with a great many other people: Courtney Shafer, Jan DeLima, Mur Lafferty, Patricia McKillip, Angie (of Angieville), Deborah Coates, Rachel Neumeier, Julie Czerneda, Janice (of SpecFic Romantic), Lois McMaster Bujold, Sue (of Coffee, Cookies, and Chili Peppers), Lane Robins, Ana and Thea (of Book Smugglers), Sherwood Smith, Karin Lowachee, Jacqueline Carey, and Renay (of Lady Business) — and that’s just the roster so far. My contribution is a discussion of why I chose to include sexism in the world of Lady Trent’s memoirs.
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These almost slipped my mind. (When revision has turned your brain into Swiss cheese, there are lots of holes for things to fall through.)
First up, I will be at Writers With Drinks this Saturday evening. Doors open at 6:30, but the event itself doesn’t start until 7:30. I am currently slated to be the first one reading, so if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hope to see you there.
Second, for SoCal folks, I have details now for my participation in the L.A. Times Festival of Books. I am on the panel “There Be Dragons!” on Sunday the 21st, at 11 a.m., with Robin Hobb and Raymond E. Feist. That runs for an hour, and then afterward my fellow panelists and I will be signing books for a little bit. I will also be signing at the Mysterious Galaxy booth at 2 p.m. If you’re there, please stop by and say hi!
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Slightly belated, the final round-up for the blog tour. There will be other posts still forthcoming, but only in the sense that, y’know, I talk about my books sometimes, in interviews or guest posts or whatever. This is the last of the actual formal book tour.
***
Interviews:
The Sleeps With Monsters interview isn’t about ANHoD specifically (but then again, by this time that’s probably a point in its favor). Ditto the Skiffy and Fanty podcast, which isn’t even really an interview per se; it’s just us talking about mythology and fantasy and Star Trek and I can’t even remember what all.
Guest posts:
anghara)
Again, that last one isn’t ANHoD-specific; it’s more of a post I was asked to write, in which I mention ANHoD in the course of discussing how I name characters. But as long as I’m rounding up everything I’ve been posting on the internet lately, I might as well include it.
In that vein, I’ll also mention my most recent BVC post is “The folklore mode of fantasy,” in which I present my own personal home-brewed theory of which folkloric style fantasy as a whole most closely resembles.
And that’s it for now. I’m revising the second book (and also facing some hassle wrt getting certain financial records for tax purposes), so I may be scarce around here for a bit.
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mrissa has posted her Minicon schedule, with a panel on which comes first: the story or the setting. To quote the description,
Which Came First
The chicken or the egg? The story or the world? Does the story you want to tell determine the setting, or does your chosen setting demand a certain kind of story to be told in it? Are there some types of stories that simply cannot be told in a particular setting? How do creators balance these seemingly opposing forces in imagining their tales?
Which has gotten me reflecting on that question and how I would answer it. Off the cuff, I thought I probably start more with the setting — hi, anthropology, yeah. But does that hold up when I actually look at the data?
(For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to keep this to novels, but I will include unpublished novels in the list. It’s probably a different ballgame if I look at short stories; that, however, would require more time than I want to devote to this right now, and a refresher course as to what the heck I’ve written.)
Cut for length; I have more novels than you guys know about.
