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Posts Tagged ‘onyx court’

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.

hahaha, you only *thought* my brain was helpful

I’m only one scene away from the end of “To Rise No More” (because I wrote the other remaining one last night, after I posted), so what do I do tonight? Do I settle in and finish that one?

No, of course not. I write two thousand words of the punk Tam Lin story instead.

Seriously, I don’t even know. I just work here, man. Now I have two half-finished short stories instead of one finished one and one barely-started one. Well, one is three-quarters done. Maybe if I go re-read the relevant period in Ada Lovelace’s letters, I can crank out that final bit tonight? It would be nice to be able to put paid to one of these things.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/585417.html. Comment here or there.

1560 words

I’ve apparently figured out how to get myself to write short stories again: they just have to be the guilty pleasure I sneak in when I’m almost done with something that’s on a deadline, when I really shouldn’t spare the time and mental energy but dammit I feel like writing something new.

In related news, the Ada Lovelace Onyx Court story now has a title (“To Rise No More”) and 1641 words, all but 81 of which were written tonight.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/583602.html. Comment here or there.

Chickens and eggs

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.

disaster relief book sale fundraiser

I’m going to take care of two problems here today:

1) I would like to raise funds for the American Red Cross in the wake of Hurricane Sandy,

2) I have way too many author copies around the house, that I’d like to get rid of.

So we’re having a book sale here at Swan Tower. Comment on this post, or e-mail me at marie{dot}brennan{at}gmail{dot}com, and I will sell you the following books at the following prices, including autographs and (if you request it) personalization to you or another person of your choice.

Note that the prices are a bit higher than they might otherwise be, to ensure that packaging and shipping doesn’t take too big a bite out of the Red Cross donation total. (I will send books overseas, too, but since this is for charity, I will probably ask you to kick in a few bucks extra to cover the increased cost of shipping.)

    $10

  • A Star Shall Fall, mass market paperback (17 copies, was 19)
  • Warrior, mass market paperback (2 copies)
  • Witch, mass market paperback (1 copy)

Please spread the word wherever you think people would be interested. I’ll try to keep this list updated in a timely manner, so that you’ll know how many books are left of each type. ETA: Total raised thus far = $245

The sale will run for one week (so, through next Thursday morning, the 8th of November).

Open Book Thread: With Fate Conspire

While rooting around in my archives looking for something else, I discovered I never put up an open book thread for With Fate Conspire!

So consider this an invitation to make any comments or ask any questions you might have about that book. (Needless to say, this will result in spoilers. Read the thread at your own risk.) I, er, can’t promise I’ll be able to answer everything with perfect clarity; at this point my head is full of Isabella instead of the Onyx Court, so I may be a tad fuzzy on some of the details. But I’ll do my best!

And if you have a question about a previous novel, the other open book threads are still open. Though I don’t have one for the doppelganger series, now that I think about it. Well, if you have a question about one of those, let me know; I can make a new thread if there’s need.

Note: As an experiment, I have closed this thread until the beginning of 2013, in an attempt to convince spammers to stop spamming it. If you have a question, feel free to ask it elsewhere, or come back in January.

observations from tonight’s round of letter-writing

1) I should have written Irrith’s letter after Delphia’s. She’s a terrible influence on my attempts at nice handwriting. πŸ™‚

2) Re-reading bits of the books to get myself back in the heads of the characters . . . and you know what? I still like them. Quite a lot.

3) Certain songs from the book soundtracks still get me right in the gut. (Particularly “The Monument,” from A Star Shall Fall. But others, too.)

4) I really, really need to write that short story about Edward Thorne. Though I should decide which I want more: for it to be from his point of view, or for it to be the Sir Peregrin and Dame Segraine Buddy-Cop Extravaganza. (The two are, alas, mutually exclusive.)

5) Ditto “This Living Hand,” aka the Story About the Willow Tree What Killed All the Romantic Poets.

6) Although I do love my new series, and my new protagonist . . . I miss the Onyx Court.

Last call for Onyx Court letters

February is nearly over, and with it, the Month of Letters! You have a few days yet in which to write a letter to the Onyx Court; I promise to answer anything mailed to me before the end of the week (to give a few days’ grace period).

And then we’ll have the fun of seeing how long it takes the inkstains to fade from my fingers. πŸ™‚ (No really, that trope of bookish types in fantasy having stained fingers? It’s totally true. I just wonder if there’s some trick I’m missing for not leaving little inky fingerprints on other parts of the page, because nobody every mentions that bit.)

Anatomy of a Ninteenth-Century Penmanship System

One week (plus a leap day) left to get a letter from the Onyx Court! (I’m slightly behind on answering a few letters I’ve received, but vow not to let “slightly” become “a lot.”)

A while ago I mentioned the Spencerian System of Practical Penmanship, which kniedzw had bought a while ago — a reproduction of an 1864 course in penmanship. I struggled with the conflicting impulses to doooooo iiiiiiiit and to run far, far away, and ended up falling partial victim to the former. Being a grown adult with fine motor control and experience in writing, I decided I didn’t need to fill out every workbook in its entirety . . . but it wouldn’t hurt me to do the first line of each page.

(This was mostly true. Hand cramps were, however, a genuine factor.)

So if you would like to follow me on my odyssey through the nineteenth century — including many illustrative photos — come behind the cut . . . .

In which the system is both too fascist, and not fascist enough.

Reminder: Letters from the Onyx Court

You have a little over two weeks left in which to get a letter from the Onyx Court, hand-written by yours truly, in the persona of a character of your choice. Get ’em while they’re hot, folks! (By which I mean, before I lose all ability to hold a pen, from concentrating so hard on not writing m when I mean n, and some weird many-humped scribble when I mean m.)

If I have time, I’ll post a report — with pictures, even — of my adventures with the Spencerian System of Practical Penmanship. Yes, I gave it a shot. The results were . . . interesting.

unexpected hazards in letter-writing

So I wrote the first Onyx Court letter tonight, and after abandoning one slightly messy-looking attempt two sentences in, succeeded at producing fair copy.

Then I folded it up, got out the sealing wax stick — which has a wick, like a miniature candle designed to drip copious wax — and nearly lit the damn letter on fire.

Need to experiment and figure out if it’s wick length or what that caused burning bits to drip off it along with the wax. Or, y’know, give up on the sealing wax thing. But I have this stuff, and never use it! This seems like the perfect excuse! I just didn’t consider this as one of the possible hazards when I set out to write these letters.

I am trying very hard not to be doomed

Oh, god. I blame kniedzw. And also the research question that sent me to my bookshelf last night, searching for a book that was not in either of the sections I expected it to be in, so I scanned along the shelf looking for it, and found this instead.

I had completely forgotten that Once Upon an Eon Ago, kniedzw purchased the Spencerian System of Practical Penmanship.

Which is a reproduction of an honest-to-god 1864 system of penmanship instruction. This thing is . . . wow. The theory book starts with “Signals,” which are the cues the teacher should use, “by bell, tap, or by counting, at the teacher’s discretion.” They are as follows:

  1. Position at Desk.
  2. Arrange Books.
  3. Find Copy and adjust Arms.
  4. Open Inkstands — In double desks the pupils on the left (the pupil’s right) will open and close inkstands.
  5. Take Pens.

At this point the teacher should pay particular attention to giving instruction in penholding. When ready to write, give the order to TAKE INK.

No, seriously. I have this vivid image of a dank, grim little classroom, the teacher standing stiffly at the front, rows of bows and girls at the desks in uncomfortable suits and dresses, moving like proper little Victorian automata while the teacher rings his bell. Which probably isn’t far off the mark.

The real question, of course, is whether I am going to subject myself to the Spencerian System for the letters from the Onyx Court. I know better than to put this to a popular vote; you all, being not the ones who would suffer through it, will cackle and tell me to doooooo iiiiiiit. And I am so very much not sure it would be worth it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop myself . . . .

Edited to add: oh my god, it’s even worse than I thought. The instructions for each exercise!

Turn in n, x, and v, at top and base the same, i.e. as short as possible with continuous motion. The x combines Principles 3, 1, 2, 1. The v combines 3, 1, 2, 2. After the combination is written, finish x by beginning at the base line, crossing upward through middle of First Principle, with a straight line, on the same slant with curves, and ending at upper line. Finish v same as w. Count 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, dot 1, cross, cross.

No really, I think the teacher is supposed to be counting out each movement for the students. I am increasingly afraid of this book.

I haven’t tried this in years

Trotting out the old Elizabeth icon for the occasion:

I had the wrong setting on my camera, so it’s unfortunately blurry, but you get the idea. I am so. doomed. I haven’t tried to write in cursive, except for that thing I laughably call my signature, for years.

Admittedly, my writing got better when I realized that a tiny notebook is a very bad choice for hand support and such. Practicing on better surfaces, and relaxing into it a bit, the result looks less awkward. Of course, if I relax into it, I’m prone to turning my n’s into m’s and my m’s into some alien thing with far too many little humps . . . which is only the most common of my errors. There are others, too. The letters I send may have more than a few things crossed out and corrected. (Which is part of the whole handwritten letter thing, right? Not everybody bothered to send perfect copy. I guess it all depends on which character I’m writing as. Dead Rick probably doesn’t worry much about errors. Delphia, however . . . .)

Letters from the Onyx Court

I’m tempted to follow in the shoes of Mary Robinette Kowal and participate in the Month of Letters . . . or rather, have my characters participate.

But I don’t want to advertise my home address to all the world, so I’d need to get a P.O. box. And that means I need to take the temperature of the Internet first, to see if there’s any interest. Would you like to receive a letter from the Onyx Court? If so, drop a comment here, on Twitter (@swan_tower), or via e-mail (marie[dot]brennan[at]gmail[dot]com) to let me know.

I figure all characters from that series (including the short fiction) are fair game, though be warned that some are better correspondents than others. πŸ™‚ If I do this, I’ll probably ask that you put a date on your own letter, so that I’ll know when the character should be responding; after all, Lune would write a very different response in 1588 than she would in 1757. (Mortal characters contacted before their births or after their deaths are not likely to respond at all.)

I even, like Mary, have quill pens with which to respond — though it may become a tossup between authenticity of writing implement and legibility of the handwriting . . . .

Halley’s Comet returns!

The one in my book, not the one in the sky.

Just got confirmation today that A Star Shall Fall will be getting a mass-market release in October of this year. So if you prefer your novels in smaller and/or cheaper format, mark the date on your calendar!

(This is actually the first time a book of mine has gotten proper release in a new physical format. There are ebooks of all of them, and the Onyx Court novels got picked up by the Science Fiction Book Club, which does hardcover copies, but this is shiny and new.)

London Incarnate

Normally I’m not a big fan of AU crack, which is to say, fanfics where the author has thrown in something totally random (“what if Frodo and Sam became pirates?”) that really doesn’t relate to the original source.

There are exceptions.

This is one of them.

It’s a fic for the new BBC series Sherlock, the one that updates the characters to the modern day. You don’t have to have seen the series, I think, to enjoy the story. But if you’ve read the Onyx Court books . . . yeah. Especially With Fate Conspire. It’s so much of what I think about London, in terms of its history and the relationship between a city and its people, with lots of little details that ring such familiar bells for me. gollumgollum pointed me at it, and I’m so glad she did.

Go. Read. Enjoy.

Three reviews and two anthologies

Three recent reviews of With Fate Conspire:

Chris at The King of Elfland’s Second Cousin has some very interesting things to say about the structure of the book.

Julia at All Things Urban Fantasy liked it enough to run out and buy the rest of the series, which is always encouraging. πŸ™‚

And a snippet from Faren Miller at Locus: “For more tales of a London based on history as well as sheer invention, try With Fate Conspire and its predecessors. Instead of the old-style fantasy of quests through green fields and dark domains, Brennan makes the most of one extraordinary city.”

Also, BCS has released The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Year Two, which includes my Driftwood story “Remembering Light.” You can download it in your choice of ebook format, from a whole variety of sources.

And it isn’t available yet, but you can preorder the Intergalactic Awards Anthology, Vol. 1, which includes another Driftwood story, “A Heretic by Degrees.” That one’s print, and will ship in mid-December.

I promised to post it ages ago . . . .

. . . so here it is at last, my costume from Sirens last year:

This was for both the masquerade ball at the end of the conference, and the A Star Shall Fall launch party beforehand. I described it as “non-specifically Lune,” in that it’s her colors and an Elizabethan style, but not me trying to actually dress as her.

(The other person in the photo, incidentally, was one of my two frontrunners for winner of the costume contest, until somebody solved my problem by mentioning that she was staff and therefore ineligible. Alas, I can’t seem to find a shot of the actual winner, who dressed as an aspen fairy, and was gorgeous. But the one you see there — her armor! It’s made from a cut-up-basketball! And she brought a RAPIER!!! <swoon>)

So yeah. That was my costume. I paid somebody to make it for me; I’ve had the fabric and design planned for ages, but never had the time (nor quite the gumption) to attempt something that difficult. This, my friends, is why god invented SCA costumers. πŸ™‚

Now I just need to find more excuses to wear it . . . .

Answers, Round Three

More answers from the ask me anything thread.

***

starlady38 asked, If you were to write anything in the Onyx Court world post-series ending, what would it be about and when would it be about?

Chronologically post-ending, or just written post-ending?

Chronologically, as others have said, the most likely continuation of the series would be into the Blitz, and then to the modern day. (Whether or not that will happen depends on multiple factors, one of which is sales figures for the rest of the series, so if you want a Blitz book: go tell your friends to buy the rest of ’em!) I have to admit I sort of like the notion of a historical series that spans enough time to stop being historical, though there would be some interesting challenges associated with doing so.

At least, that’s the novel side of things. I’ve written a few Onyx Court short stories, and intend to write at least a few more; one of those would be a Jack the Ripper story, taking place not long after the end of With Fate Conspire. Aside from that, the top spot on the short fiction list is probably the “Ada Lovelace builds herself wings” story.

***

yhlee asked, Favorite weapon?

Rapier.

What? I watched The Princess Bride at a very impressionable age. ^_^ And then took fencing classes at my local rec center, where our teacher couldn’t keep us linear and make us leave our off-hands out of it for love or money, until he said “screw it” and taught us rapier-and-dagger styles instead of foil or epee. The left-handed weapon of my matched pair of rapiers was a gift from him.

The style suits me, I think, and I want to get back to doing it. I am definitely built for speed and accuracy above strength, and it’s a great weapon for Renaissance-ish settings, which I do admit I have a soft spot for.

***

alecaustin asked, Did you ever get a chance to do the research you wanted to do for the Mt. Hiei story?

I’m working on it, yeah. (Actually, I need to steal the car from my husband so I can make a trip down to the Stanford library, after which work will proceed at a much more useful pace.)

Also, under which edition of D&D (if any) are you level 31? (4e would break in half, but you’re okay under 3e’s Epic level rules, and still within parameters for Classic D&D…)

Who says it’s D&D? I’m tempted to claim I’m a Dragon Age DW rogue, and just picked up Unending Flurry. (Man, pair that with Twin Strikes and Low Blow, and your opponent bleeds out like you cut their femoral artery.) But even with the Awakening expansion, DA classes cap out at level 35, and I want to live long past that point. WoW would be a good choice, since they keep raising the level cap — but I don’t play that game and have no interest in doing so. In which case, okay, fine, I’m a D&D 3.5 character, playing for a GM who (hopefully) doesn’t mind coming up with the stupidly over-the-top plots that become necessary when playing epic-level PCs. ‘Cause I intend to become very epic.