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And that’s that

The last Deeds of Men winner has been chosen. Thanks to everyone who signed up for the newsletter — I’ll make it as interesting and news-ful as I can.

Don’t forget that you can still post comments or questions on the discussion thread (same goes for Midnight and Ashes, of course). And I do hope to have more Onyx Court short fiction for you guys in the future — not while I’m plugging away on this novel, probably, but maybe after it’s done I’ll get “And Blow Them at the Moon” or “Bow Street Runner” written.

But first, novel.

Deeds of Men giveaway

The plan is to give away one signed set of both Midnight Never Come and (in advance of publication) In Ashes Lie each week between now and the book release, and the first winner has been drawn. If you’ve already signed up, you’re still in the running; if you haven’t, head on over to the page for Deeds of Men and provide your e-mail address, and you too could get an early copy.

Open Book Thread: Deeds of Men

If you have any questions or comments about Deeds of Men, this is the place for them. No LJ account required to post.

It is obviously a Spoiler-Rich Zone for the novella, but may (depending on what people have to say) contain spoilers for Midnight Never Come as well.

IAL teaser: Deeds of Men

London, 1625. A young man lies dead in a Coldharbour alley. Before his death, he uncovered secrets that could threaten the mortal world above and the faerie world below. Now, to find the murderer and protect both realms, Sir Michael Deven will need the help of a man with reason to hate the fae of the Onyx Court — the victim’s own brother.

*** *** ***

In between the novels, there are other stories.

Deeds of Men is a free Onyx Court novella, taking place between Midnight Never Come and In Ashes Lie. You can download it from my website in your choice of formats (HTML, PDF, or ePub), or order a bound copy via AnthologyBuilder.

This is what I spent February working on, what I was researching Buckingham for, what I needed copy-edited in British style. You don’t need to have read either novel first (though it does contain some spoilers for Midnight), and you don’t need to read it to enjoy Ashes, but it covers some of the events between the two books, like a DVD extra. I hope to do more Onyx Court stories in the future, too: there’s lots of fun bits of history that fall outside the scope of my novels, and lots of chances to explore side characters.

(Confidential to matociquala — it has dead Spaniard in it just for you.)

In a little while I’ll post a Spoiler Zone thread for people to discuss the story or ask questions. In the meantime, enjoy!

last excerpt

Normally, when posting novel excerpts, I just go from the beginning until I reach a suitable stopping point a suitable way in.

In Ashes Lie, however, is a nonlinear novel: it cuts back and forth between the four days of the Great Fire, and the events leading up to that point. Because of that, I’ve decided to skip ahead, in order to give you a taste of the Fire scenes. (Don’t worry about spoilers; the only thing you really need to know is that Nicneven — mentioned in an earlier scene — has grown to be a major threat against the Onyx Court.)

I don’t really get into the mode of Blowing Shit Up until later, but hopefully that will whet your appetite just a little.

(If you missed or want to re-read the earlier excerpts, they start here.)

That’s it for IAL samples — you’ll have the rest of the book in a little over a month — but stay tuned for a few more treats . . . .

Happy International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!

Yes, folks, I’m doing it again. In fact, I’m doing it even more than in the past two years: I’ve decided to toss up, for free, on my website, all of my fiction published prior to the end of 2006.

Two things swayed me in this decision. One is the relative lack of value in the reprint rights. If anybody was going to put these in a Year’s Best anthology, they would have done so, well, years ago. I’m lazy about marketing the reprint rights to magazines, and (given the situation) my likely payoff on it is low anyway. And I’m not exactly at a point where anybody’s looking to put out a collection of my short fiction.

The other is that I’ve come across a couple of blog posts in the last year to the effect of, “here’s Marie Brennan’s website, she’s got some of her short fiction up there for free, and reading through it makes me want to buy her novels.” I gotta figure, that’s a good thing. And sure, that isn’t necessarily a reason to add more, but — see point #1 above.

So here you go, a (small) bonanza of my older stories:

The rest of the stories from that period are already available, either because I posted them in previous years, or because they’re still in the online archives of their respective magazines. The one exception is “White Shadow,” my first short story sale: since that’s in an anthology, I don’t feel I should post it with the rest.

Speaking of anthologies, though — I’ve submitted all of these pieces to AnthologyBuilder (which already has a couple of my stories), so as soon as those get processed, you should be able to have them printed in a POD collection of your own design. There isn’t quite enough yet to make an entire Marie Brennan collection, but it’s getting there. (Think of it like iTunes for stories, and you’ll have the general idea.)

For more technopeasantry, go here.

web help needed

I need the assistance of someone who can code a web-form type thing for me — basically, something which will ask people for their e-mail addresses, give them the a chance to opt in to a few things, and then send them along to a different URL when all of that’s done.

Any takers?

FYI

If you can’t access my website for a little while, it’s because the host is having a downtime this evening.

A day late

I meant to post this after getting home from ICFA last night, but got distracted. Eighty days seventy-nine days to the publication of In Ashes Lie, and today’s bit of added content . . . comes from Midnight Never Come, actually.

Long-time readers of this journal may recall that back when I drafted that book, I had to re-write a substantial chunk of Act One — basically Deven’s chunk of it, almost in its entirety. Therefore, in the spirit of the “deleted scenes” they put on some DVDs, you can read the original draft, complete with some notes about why it got replaced (and what I wish I could have kept).

There’s mild spoilers for MNC in the discussion of those scenes, so if you want to say and/or ask anything about them, I direct you to the spoiler thread for the novel; comment there instead of here.

One Hundred Days . . .

. . . and counting.

As with last year, I’m going to dole out bits of stuff to keep you all interested between now and the release date of In Ashes Lie, on the tenth of June. Expect something every ten days, assuming I can keep myself organized enough to put everything together, and alert enough to post it when the appropriate day rolls around.

Today? You get your first taste of the book.

last one!

Obviously I didn’t make it to twelve recommendations this year, but I realized today that I hadn’t gotten around to my annual Diana Wynne Jones rec. So this time it’s Archer’s Goon, which, while not in my first tier of favorites, is in about the first-and-a-halfth tier.

Catching up with a few more book recommendations:

To Say Nothing of the Dog, with which I have begun to mend my ignorance of Connie Willis’ novels, and

Uglies, in which Scott Westerfeld has fun with semi-dystopic near future SF YA.

If you have read either book, feel free to discuss in the comments.

more recs

Yeah, so I totally didn’t manage a recommendation every day last week, but I’m still plugging along. This time it’s Mary Doria Russell’s lovely “Jesuits meet aliens” religious SF novel The Sparrow.

Yesterday was crazy-busy, and I totally spaced on posting a recommendation. Have it now: Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear’s bloody-minded Norse troll-fighting animal companion fantasy critique, A Companion to Wolves.

recommendation #2

Next up to bat: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, by Galen Beckett. Nutshell description is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell meets a whole host of nineteenth-century literature in an alternate England that, now that I think about it, reminds me weirdly of George R. R. Martin.

Which should send at least a few of you leaping to follow that link. <g>

I’m just full of postiness today. (Except for the two-hour span where I PTFO’d on the couch. I forgot to include napping in the list of things that I sometimes do in the afternoon or early evening. Though two hours was particularly appalling.)

Anyway, if you’ve been looking for a nutshell description of IAL that tells you more than “Stuart faerie disaster novel,” there is now a small blurb on my site. I’m not fully satisfied with it, since the Civil War and its surrounding troubles are an ongoing concern in the book, not just backstory, but that’s the way the blurb came out, so that’s what you get for now. It’ll do as a placeholder, anyway, until we get some actual cover copy written.

back to the recs

In the vein of “writing-related program activites,” I’m trying to catch up with my book recs. I’ve read a bunch of good things lately, so I’m going to try to post one each day this week. May not succeed, but hey, it’s a goal.

Today’s rec, therefore, is Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi. Fun and funny military SF. The short form of the rec is, I picked the book up to read five pages and see what I thought of it, and a few hours later I’d finished the whole thing. Which is very nearly the best recommendation I can give any book.

I promised you a goodie . . . .

So the auction (which has raised over forty-three thousand dollars, at last count — good god!) included an offer from the inestimable yhlee: an original music composition, to a prompt of the buyer’s choosing.

I jumped on the “Buy It Now” price like a rabid weasel three minutes after the auction opened, and chose as my prompt . . . the Onyx Court series.

That’s right: my books now have a theme song.

Want to hear it? You can download the recording from my website. (Right-click and save, natch.) If you would like to hear the early draft, that’s available, too. Share as you please; just make sure to credit Yoon Ha Lee as the composer and artist, and my series as the inspiration.

***

This seems as good a time as any to mention my policy regarding fan work. It hasn’t really come up yet, but someday it might, so for future reference, here’s my stance.

If you want to compose your own music, or draw some art, or write a story, or whatever, based on Midnight Never Come or anything else of mine, then so long as you aren’t using it for commercial purposes or trying to lay claim to the original work itself, I say have fun.

If commercial profit comes into the picture (you’re a musician who wants to record the song on your next album) or you might be stepping on the toes of a right reserved in my contract (a student film), then please contact me so we can work something out. Even if what we work out is just a thumbs-up to whatever you had in mind in exchange for a link to my site, it’s better to make that clear. I’m unlikely to object or to charge you some exorbitant fee. (Unless you’re a major Hollywood studio, in which case I’m getting a media agent and instructing that person to take you for all they can. (I should be so lucky.))

In the case of things like music and visual art, I’d be flattered if you let me know this is happening. If it’s fanfic, I’m unlikely to read the work in question; legal twitchery aside (what if you write something and then someday I use a similar idea?), it would probably just hurt my brain to see other people’s takes on my characters. But I do believe that fan work is a sign that readers are engaged with the story, so I don’t mind people playing around with my ideas. If you feel so inspired, then by all means, go right ahead.

your morning Midnight round-up

The major purpose of this is to say that Orbit has announced the winners of the website competition. (If you are one, I think they’ve notified you by now, but everyone else may not have heard.) Thanks to everyone who participated, and I hope you had fun!

***

Review time:

juushika was not a fan of the flashbacks, and found the characters a bit underdeveloped, but liked the book overall.

Two people in Italy also seem to be saying nice things about it, as near as I can tell from Babelfish and my own limited command of the Romance language family. (Hey, people in Italy — keep talking about it! Then maybe I can make a translation sale there.)

***

Brief quasi-interview piece on Sci Fi Wire, the Sci Fi Channel’s news service. John Joseph Adams (better known to some of you as the slush reader for F&SF) interviewed me, then compiled my answers into something more like an article.

There should be a few more coming in the nearish future, too — but I want to clear these tabs, so here’s this stuff, and I’ll post again when the other things happen.