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Posts Tagged ‘help me o internets’

Recommend things to me!

As many of you may have noticed, I am a fan of historical fantasy and historical-adjacent fantasy — by which I mean, stories taking place in settings clearly modeled on a real period and place, but technically a secondary world. (In other words, the kind of thing the Memoirs are.) I like this sort of novel a great deal.

But.

I find myself craving stuff that isn’t quite so tied to reality. Secondary-world fantasy in which invention can fly more freely. I don’t mean that it has to be so wacky and out there that it bears no resemblance to anything we know; things like Elizabeth Bear’s Eternal Sky books are fine, because while the cultures are clearly inspired by Central Asian sources, they also have lots of imaginative details unrelated to real history. But further out is also good. I want worlds where humans rub shoulders with sentient non-human creatures. I want cosmologies that don’t obey our rules. I also — and this is a more specific and directed part of the current craving — want settings where the tech level isn’t generically medievalish, but has printing presses and guns or things that are like printing presses or guns but operate in different ways and occupy not quite the same role and are powered by magic or whatever instead. (Because this notion that high fantasy and technology are antithetical is bollocks.)

Things I do not want: grimdark epic fantasy. China Mieville (I’ve bounced off too much of his work.) Brandon Sanderson (ditto.) Anything else is good, though: adult, YA, comic books, humorous, dramatic, stand-alone novels, series, etc. I feel like I need to feed my brain with some stranger stuff than it’s been getting lately.

Recommend things to me?

sound effect

There’s a particular . . . sound effect? I don’t even know if that’s the right word to apply. It’s a quality sometimes heard in the background beat of techno songs. I have a hard time describing it in words (and can’t think of any examples to link to, since I hate the songs that do this and therefore always turn them off) — it’s kind of this muffled effect at the end of the beat that then slides into the sharp beginning of the next one — but the easiest way for me to summarize it is, it makes me feel like I’m being punched in the eardrums. Repeatedly. Ad nauseam.

I don’t suppose anybody a) knows what I’m talking about and b) can tell me whether it has a specific name?

A question for the legal eagles

More a question for the legislative eagles, I suppose. This has nothing to do with the Memoirs of Lady Trent; it’s a question for the modern-day U.S. (Because when I’m on the home stretch of a book is a great time for totally unrelated stories to mug me!)

Suppose there is a federal law to deal with Topic X. Ambiguous Situation B arises, sparking disagreement over whether the law applies in this instance or not. This is the first time Ambiguous Situation B has occurred, but it likely won’t be the last, and Topic X is a pretty serious issue, so people are very invested in getting the matter settled beyond question.

Quite apart from the fact that there would be presumably be a legal brangle over the applicability or irrelevance of Law for Topic X, I imagine that there would also be a rush to amend the law and render that question permanently moot.

My question for you all: how would this proceed?

Assume that Congress is very interested in getting the law amended ASAP, but that it is divided as to whether it should be amended to say “nope, definitely doesn’t apply here” or “hell yes it applies.” Would there be competing bills, one for each side? (I imagine there would.) Different bills in the House and the Senate? How do those get started? What process do they go through before they come to a vote? How rapidly could all of this unfold, presuming there is a compelling reason for trying to make it happen quickly? How would Congress deal with there being two bills in direct opposition to one another, if that’s actually what would be going on? What effect would the ongoing legal brangle have on the legislative process? (The lawsuit being settled in favor of “yes, it applies” could theoretically render unnecessary any change to say that yes, it applies, but Congress is now worried about the possibility of Ambiguous Situations C, D, E, and everything else they can think up. And if the lawsuit gets settled the other way, the side that wants Ambiguous Situation B covered could say “well, we just changed the law, and this version definitely applies.”)

I know only slightly more than zilch about the legislative process in this country, so this is one of those “talk to me like I’m five” questions. I need to know the procedure here before I can judge what it would do to the rest of the story.

minor to major

Hey, people who know more about music theory than I do:

How does one go about shifting a piece of music from a minor key to a major one? (Assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that I’m just looking to transpose a simple melodic line. No chords or anything to worry about.)

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/601316.html. Comment here or there.

where I’ve been; where I’ll be

I was offline for a bit (sort of) because my laptop had to go in for repair, leaving me mostly functioning off a tablet for the duration of its absence. Not conducive to blogging, nor to anything much resembling productivity. 😛

But! There are interesting things afoot, and I would like help from you all, dear readers, in prepping for them.

To whit, the kniedzw and I are going to England. (Mostly to London, though we’ll be attending a friend’s wedding in Oxfordshire, and I’ll be winding up in Brighton at the end for World Fantasy. Also, we’re probably going to pop over to Paris for a bit to see his old roommate.) We’ll be there from October 11th through the end of the month . . .

. . . and I have no idea where we should stay.

“But swan_tower,” you say, “haven’t you stayed in London, like, a bazillion times?” Why yes, yes I have — for values of “a bazillion” that equal half a dozen or so, that is. But the first of those, I stayed with a friend’s sister, and the last four, I stayed in the cheapest hostel possible, neither of which are really what we’re looking for in this case. (The remaining time — or possibly two — I have no memory at all of where I stayed.) I honestly don’t even know what neighborhood we should aim for. We’re there for sightseeing, not research, so I don’t need to be smack dab in the middle of the City. In fact, I’d prefer not to be, since you can’t get food there after 6 p.m. 😛

Where should we look at? Our price range is flexible; we’re not looking for luxury, but we want better than a backpacker hostel. Convenience to a Tube station is key, though probably not hard to get. Moderately central location preferable, i.e. maybe we could save a bundle by staying somewhere out in Richmond but it isn’t worth trekking back and forth.

Recommendations? And feel free to propose nifty things to see in London that I haven’t already done.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/597064.html. Comment here or there.

research question and icon contest followup

Icons first, because that’s the shorter bit: I had someone ask how large the icon should be for The Tropic of Serpents. Answer is, 100×100 pixels; that’s LJ’s size limit. And the door is still open for people to submit their efforts — not because the ones I’ve received are in any way unsatisfactory, but because I didn’t answer this question sooner, and I want to give everybody who’s interested a chance to try! Remember, winner gets either a hardcover of A Natural History of Dragons or an ARC of Tropic when those become available.

Now, the research question. First of all, my deep gratitude to everybody who has responded; keep ’em coming. Secondly, some clarification.

I almost feel like I shouldn’t have mentioned Hawai’i, because so many people have fixated on that. It doesn’t have to be Hawai’i specifically, so if you have recommendations for sources on other Polynesian societies, please share them — New Zealand, Samoa, wherever. Reason being, what I’m after right now is stuff that will give me a broad sense of what traits are shared across the Polynesian cultural sphere, such that we’re able to talk about there being such a sphere. I won’t attempt to drill down more specifically until I have that broad sense, because without it, I don’t really know where I want to drill.

This means that if, say, there are better writings about New Zealand than there are about Hawai’i, then I’ll happily go read about New Zealand instead. I don’t need the specific history of any one place, because I’m not writing about that place; I’m trying to invent a society with broadly similar social/political/religious/economic structures. Mind you, I know enough about the history of anthropological writing to know I’m going to be dodging bullets wherever I go (hi, Margaret Mead; how are you?) — but if there’s an area with fewer bullets flying, please do point me at it. 🙂 As long as it’s part of the Polynesian sphere, it’s good for my purposes at this stage.

As for history in my own setting, I need to invent the nearest continent before I’ll know what I’m doing with that. 😛

(Speaking of which, I should inflate my globe-beachball again and start doing some more worldbuilding.)

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/593439.html. Comment here or there.

Help me, o Internets; I don’t know where to start.

So I know you all are still waiting for The Tropic of Serpents to come out, but backstage, we’re already ramping up for the third book of the series. And you know what that means: research!

. . . on a topic I don’t know at all. A large portion of the third book, you see, will take place in an area based on the Polynesian Islands. My knowledge of Polynesian culture pretty much consists of “tourism in Hawai’i,” which, y’know. Not so much. The sole book in my library on the topic is Pacific Mythology, which is an encyclopedia-style overview of the entire Pacific, Polynesian and otherwise.

So where do I start? Does anybody out there have recommendations for good early histories (pre-European contact, though not necessarily pre-other-people contact), “daily life in ancient Hawai’i” type books, local mythology 101, etc?

I also could use recommendations of appropriate music. I make heavy use of playlists to set my brain in the right gear, but I have zilch in the way of stuff from that particular milieu. I don’t even know what it sounds like, beyond “stereotypical hula tunes.” Traditional folk music, movie scores that draw on that kind of sound, all of those things are good.

Help me, o Internets. I’m dead in the water here.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/592018.html. Comment here or there.

The Tropic of Serpents, revealed!

I can’t decide whether the people at Tor are mean, or love you very, very much. (Can they be both at once?) You see, The Tropic of Serpents won’t be coming out for another eight months . . . but we have cover art now, and they’ve decided to make it public.

Can I just take a moment to say how pleased I am with myself? Also with Todd Lockwood, of course, who once again has turned in an absolutely gorgeous piece of work, and let’s not forget Irene Gallo (the art director at Tor) and everybody else involved in making this happen. But myself, too, because a few months back I was sitting here chewing on concepts and trying to figure out how we could repeat the general look of A Natural History of Dragons without pulling the same anatomical cut-away trick every single time. Then I hit upon the idea of a motion study, and lo: it worked!

You all know what this means, of course. I need an icon! Post your best efforts in the comment thread, and if I pick yours, you can have your choice of either a signed copy of A Natural History of Dragons, or an ARC of the sequel when those become available.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/591069.html. Comment here or there.

‘puter troubles, desktop edition

It never rains but it pours.

Remember how my laptop was going kaput a while ago, and I asked for tablet advice? (Thanks for all the responses, btw. I ended up going with a Google Nexus, and I’m quite pleased with it. In fact, that’s what I’m writing this post on.)

Well, my desktop has been acting strangely, to the point where I think I should look into getting a new one. The current one is pretty elderly, and I think I’d rather make the switch before it goes completely belly-up.

So now I’m looking for opinions on that end of the spectrum. I’m a Windows user (please don’t try to get me to convert), and 90% of the work done on that machine falls into the categories of word processing and internet, so I don’t need anything massive. I am running Lightroom these days, though, and I’ve found that sometimes I can’t even play Steam games on the thing because they’re too advanced for its graphics card; ergo, I’m likely to aim a bit higher this time than my usual bare-bones build. Current machine is a Dell, as was its predecessor; I’ve been happy with them, but I haven’t been keeping up with the state of the art, and I don’t know whether I should be looking at other manufacturers.

Corollary question: Windows 8? kniedzw tells me I will haaaaaaaaaaaate it, because I started computing back in the days of DOS, and object to operating systems that try to keep me from rummaging around in their guts. I’d be interested in feedback from people who have used it at all.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/588292.html. Comment here or there.

celebrity gossip, nineteenth-century edition

I don’t suppose anybody can tell me the location of the party on the fifth of June, 1833, at which Ada Byron first met Charles Babbage? Passages doesn’t say, nor does The Enchantress of Numbers, but I’d like to know so I can properly set this scene. I know Babbage invited her to see the Difference Engine a few weeks later, and that was at his house, but I doubt that’s where they met.

Edit: Looks like it was at Mary Somerville’s house in Chelsea — but if anybody can tell me where in Chelsea, that would be fantastic.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/585816.html. Comment here or there.

a long shot

Does your university library have a copy of Victorian Colonial Women’s Travelogues: Early British Colonial Rule in East Africa, by Benjamin M.O. Odhoji?

Are you willing to take a brief look at it for me and report back?

If so, ping me. Here or at marie {dot} brennan {at} gmail {dot} com. Stanford’s library has for once failed me.

EDIT: I’ve now heard from two people that the book isn’t even listed in Worldcat, so, um, nevermind. <sigh>

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582014.html. Comment here or there.

Talk to me about tablets

My laptop is, after nearly six years of good-to-middling service, tottering along on its last legs. I’m thinking that at this point it makes the most sense for me to pick up a tablet instead of a full laptop, but I don’t really know what to look at.

What’s out there right now, that isn’t an iPad? (I’m considering that too, but A: I’m a PC user and B: my brother worked on the iPad, so if I need proselytizing and/or information, all I have to do is walk down the street.) What do you recommend? What do you recommend I stay away from?

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/575174.html. Comment here or there.

comic books for young children?

Question on behalf of friends:

They are looking for comic books suitable for their five-year-old daughter to read. She reads at the level of an eight- or nine-year-old, in terms of vocabulary and comprehension; however, she does not have the emotional or psychological development of a kid that age. In particular, she has recently started to grok what death means, and is deeply upset by it; ergo stories that involve death are (at present) Right Out. (Even in a therapeutic, coming-to-terms-with-it way. The parents are handling the issue, but for now they don’t want to give her stories that will trigger a meltdown.) Ergo, they’re looking for lighthearted things with content suitable for a five-year-old, even if the language is more sophisticated than that.

Suggestions? My own knowledge of comic books is pretty narrow, and in terms of age suitability doesn’t go any younger than, oh, Elfquest. They want comic books because although their daughter’s reading comprehension is great, she’s much more interested in stories that have pictures than those without. And, y’know. The parents are geeks, too, and it’s never too early to indoctrinate your child!

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/572206.html. Comment here or there.

a set of very interesting questions

I could see giving this to physics students as a brain-bender. (In fact, I won’t be surprised if it turns out somebody already has.)

In the first scenario, I believe — operating on the remnants of my physics knowledge — that it would accelerate downward. Gravity still acts on the rod; it will move, and the bits of it that pass through the blue portal re-emerge from the orange one with their momentum conserved, so it’s (I think) functionally no different from letting it fall a really long distance. Probably it will achieve terminal velocity at some point.

In the second scenario, I think the rod would accelerate the other way? But I’m not sure. The falling orange portal would push some of the rod back out the blue portal, which pushes more into the orange portal, and you’ve basically got the same situation as in #1, except in the other direction. But the part I can’t figure out is what happens when the orange portal comes to rest atop the blue one. (Or even not directly atop it — you could stop any distance away that is less than the length of the rod.) Does the rod bend? There’s no longer enough room for all its length between the portals, so I feel like it must, but I’m not sure how the force for that works out. (And actually, if the rod is allowed to move as in scenario #1, then I think you get this problem right away. Because then the rod is trying to come and go from both portals at once.)

In the third scenario, I think that if the portals are shot as depicted in the diagram, you’ve made a weak projectile. Move the orange portal, and now the rod falls through the floor and out the wall. (If you’ve let it build up momentum via the first scenario, then maybe it’s not so weak.) But that assumption depends on what I think is an as-yet unanswered question in the games, namely, what happens if a portal goes away while something more solid than a beam of light is athwart the boundary. I’m presuming it severs the object in question, so that you’ve basically made an ordinary piece of pipe with a solder in the middle, which then falls through the blue portal. I’m not sure we ever saw that issue in action during the game, though, at least not as a puzzle. (Probably people have left turrets or cubes balanced on the portal boundary and then shot a new one; my guess is they fell to whichever side had the majority of their mass. But that may just be a coding default, rather than a conscious choice on the part of the designers to say that portals can’t slice objects in half.)

It’s been years since I thought about this stuff, though. Tell me, O internets: where have I got it wrong?

more Hebrew!

I was going to say that I should just learn enough Hebrew to be able to read a dictionary usefully, but then it occurred to me that this request requires at least some knowledge of grammar, which is probably more Hebrew-learning than I can really spare the time for at present. (Though the main point still stands, which is that learning the alphabet would be a handy thing for me to do.)

Anyway. Point being, I need more assistance from the Hebrew-speaking members of my audience. How would you say “those sent forth”? As in (and yes, I’m getting my terminology from Wikipedia, here), the plural of the Qal passive participle for whatever the nearest verb is for “to send forth.”

In other words, I’m trying to end up with a word along the lines of pĕrûshîm, but with a different verb. Any suggestions?

one more thing: techie help needed

I need some technical assistance from a person familiar with WordPress (specifically, WP themes and how they work), and also CSS. Anybody willing and able to volunteer? Comment here or e-mail me at marie{dot}brennan[at]gmail{dot}com.

you knew this was coming

My general incompetence with image manipulation continues. So: who wants to make me an icon for Lies and Prophecy? (You can find a large version of the cover here.) It can be animated or static, it can show the hand or just a card or whatever looks good at 100×100 pixels.

I’ll pick one on Monday, to give people a little time to work. And the winning artist can have their choice between a print copy of Lies and Prophecy once I have ’em, or tuckerization (that is, the use of their name) for a minor character in the sequel — presuming, of course, that L&P sells well enough for me to write the sequel, which I hope it will. I promise to make it a cool character, though.

fun with wuxia

I’m in the brainstorming stage of ideas for my L5R chapter, and so I put it to you, o internets:

What are your favorite wuxia plot tropes?

I’m thinking specifically of the more mystical end of things — more The Bride with White Hair than Hero, but really, anything in that general direction. I need to invent some history for this chapter, and I need some fuel to get my brain rolling in the right genre. (Feel free to recommend movies I might enjoy, while you’re at it.)

things that are needed

Two for me, one for somebody else. If you have suggestions for where to find these things, please share in the comments (or e-mail me).

1) A convertible duffel/backpack. Which is to say, a bag that opens like a duffel (down its long axis, rather than on top), but whose straps are intended to be worn as a backpack. I screwed up my hip recently because my karate bag (a duffel) is kind of heavy, and it isn’t good for me to wear it across my body; I can carry it like a backpack, but the straps aren’t designed for that, so they’re less than ideal. I need a replacement.

2) Music from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The TV series, not the movie which tragically never got made. (Wouldn’t it have been awesome, if there were a movie? I’m sure it would have been awesome. What a pity it didn’t happen.) I know there was never a CD release, but I’m told they made a lot of the music available online. I’ve only been able to find it streaming, though — not anything I can download. This is probably because I am pig-ignorant as to how one searches for such things.

3) Beard cover. (This would be the one that isn’t for me.) A friend of mine needs recommendations for a suitable way to cover up beard stubble, that (I quote) “doesn’t feel like spackle.”

. . . with a motley assortment of requests like that, my comment thread is going to look rather interesting. 🙂

Brief Hebrew question, again

I need a Hebrew word/root for “trick” or “lie.”

(Ultimate goal: to end up with some “Zedekiah”-style invented name that tells those in the know that the bearer is actually a liar.)

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