Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 34
November 22, 2011
Corridor-3
Okay, Corridor is up on the Website! Thank you, Sitemistress Deb!
With luck, I'll have a Sun Wolf story done before Christmas, and can then get started on the next January book. I've been looking forward to doing this one for a long time, since it takes place in Washington DC - so, historical guest-stars galore!
As I said a few days ago, I'll be at LosCon, at the Airport Marriott in Los Angeles, definitely Friday and Saturday. I'm doing a couple of panels and a signing.
It's a brilliantly chilly California morning here, but they're predicting rain for Thanksgiving itself.
In the meantime, more exams to grade...
With luck, I'll have a Sun Wolf story done before Christmas, and can then get started on the next January book. I've been looking forward to doing this one for a long time, since it takes place in Washington DC - so, historical guest-stars galore!
As I said a few days ago, I'll be at LosCon, at the Airport Marriott in Los Angeles, definitely Friday and Saturday. I'm doing a couple of panels and a signing.
It's a brilliantly chilly California morning here, but they're predicting rain for Thanksgiving itself.
In the meantime, more exams to grade...
November 21, 2011
Corridor-2
Deb tells me that the new Antryg-and-Joanna novella, Corridor, should be up tonight.
It feels like Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I teach tomorrow night and Wednesday night - the class runs from 7-10, but since it's on the other side of Los Angeles from me, I generally drive up to the college mid-afternoon with my dinner in a bento box. Since I have a nice little office, and I ALWAYS have work to do (in this case, grading exams... LOTS of them...), I find it preferable to spending 90 minutes in rush-hour traffic on the freeway. (Class at 7 means leave at 6 which means... Let's not go there.) In any case, today is the day to clean house, do prep, and iron napkins and table-cloths. And since I got a turkey the size of a Volkswagen, I get to wake up VERY early Thursday morning to do the cooking.
Nevertheless, I deeply enjoy family holidays.
LosCon 38 will occupy the remainder of the weekend, as will grading exams. But it'll be a long week-end.
It feels like Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I teach tomorrow night and Wednesday night - the class runs from 7-10, but since it's on the other side of Los Angeles from me, I generally drive up to the college mid-afternoon with my dinner in a bento box. Since I have a nice little office, and I ALWAYS have work to do (in this case, grading exams... LOTS of them...), I find it preferable to spending 90 minutes in rush-hour traffic on the freeway. (Class at 7 means leave at 6 which means... Let's not go there.) In any case, today is the day to clean house, do prep, and iron napkins and table-cloths. And since I got a turkey the size of a Volkswagen, I get to wake up VERY early Thursday morning to do the cooking.
Nevertheless, I deeply enjoy family holidays.
LosCon 38 will occupy the remainder of the weekend, as will grading exams. But it'll be a long week-end.
November 19, 2011
Corridor
Whoot!
I have finished what I hope is the last-but-a-polish draft of the Antryg-and-Joanna novella Corridor , which I hope to get turned over to Sitemistress and up onto the Further Adventures section of the website by Thanksgiving! I'd hoped to have two to go up - and hope to get the Sunwolf-and-Starhawk story written and up by Christmas - but it's been a crushingly busy semester, and I've been very tired.
Still, I'm enormously pleased with Corridor .
I'll fluff it up a little tomorrow, and send it off, and will make the announcement here when it goes live.
On other fronts, I'll be at LosCon 38 (I believe it's 38) at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles Friday, Saturday, and possibly Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend (in between grading exams); I have panels Friday and Saturday, and a signing Friday afternoon.
Now tonight I can actually go out and go to a movie!
I have finished what I hope is the last-but-a-polish draft of the Antryg-and-Joanna novella Corridor , which I hope to get turned over to Sitemistress and up onto the Further Adventures section of the website by Thanksgiving! I'd hoped to have two to go up - and hope to get the Sunwolf-and-Starhawk story written and up by Christmas - but it's been a crushingly busy semester, and I've been very tired.
Still, I'm enormously pleased with Corridor .
I'll fluff it up a little tomorrow, and send it off, and will make the announcement here when it goes live.
On other fronts, I'll be at LosCon 38 (I believe it's 38) at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles Friday, Saturday, and possibly Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend (in between grading exams); I have panels Friday and Saturday, and a signing Friday afternoon.
Now tonight I can actually go out and go to a movie!
November 15, 2011
Adventures in Research - Replies
The big fat book is A History of Islamic Societies, by Ira Lapidus. I'm not far into it yet, but I'm still enjoying it tremendously. It's opening a world that we were certainly never taught about in school.
The thinner book is New York Unexpurgated (or maybe it's Unexpurgated New York) by "Petronius." As I read on further it became clear to me that about a third of it was simply made-up out of salacious sensationalism because "Petronius" was a little short on his word-count... but I think there's real stuff in there about the flavor of districts and the atmosphere of certain parts of the city, though I actually don't think there was QUITE that much partner-swapping going on even in 1966. (Maybe I'm naive). And the section about orgies is just silly. However, the true gold is a slender little section toward the end: his "tourists don't care about this" guide to not-so-famous places. Where did Diamond Jim Brady live, where was the final show-down between the Dead Rabbits gang and the Swamp Rats back in the mid-nineteenth-century, where were the truly notorious saloons and crimp-joints in 1912? For that section alone, that sense of the long history of criminal New York, I'll keep that one on the shelf, right along with the other AMAZING book about criminal New York in the 1800s, Luc Sante's Low Life (which I'm sure was the main source for Scorsese's Gangs of New York).
A soft gray day, but predicted WAY cold up at the college tonight. Exams all week.
The thinner book is New York Unexpurgated (or maybe it's Unexpurgated New York) by "Petronius." As I read on further it became clear to me that about a third of it was simply made-up out of salacious sensationalism because "Petronius" was a little short on his word-count... but I think there's real stuff in there about the flavor of districts and the atmosphere of certain parts of the city, though I actually don't think there was QUITE that much partner-swapping going on even in 1966. (Maybe I'm naive). And the section about orgies is just silly. However, the true gold is a slender little section toward the end: his "tourists don't care about this" guide to not-so-famous places. Where did Diamond Jim Brady live, where was the final show-down between the Dead Rabbits gang and the Swamp Rats back in the mid-nineteenth-century, where were the truly notorious saloons and crimp-joints in 1912? For that section alone, that sense of the long history of criminal New York, I'll keep that one on the shelf, right along with the other AMAZING book about criminal New York in the 1800s, Luc Sante's Low Life (which I'm sure was the main source for Scorsese's Gangs of New York).
A soft gray day, but predicted WAY cold up at the college tonight. Exams all week.
November 13, 2011
More Adventures in Research
In the midst of reading a fascinating, detailed, and ground-level nit-pickety history of Islam (it was THESE tax-collection policies of the Abbasid calips which led to THESE events that shaped the religion as a whole...), I took a break and opened one of the books from George's collection that I've had earmarked for reading for years, a little volume called
New York Unexpurgated
. It's essentially a "guide to swinging New York" (i.e. where to get laid and by whom) published in 1966, and it's like watching an episode of Mad Men: what percentage of discotheque go-go girls hook on the side, how college-girls arrange to do part-time hooking, how madams operate, how different bars change their clientele and "feel" between pre-noon, noon, afternoon, nighttime and after-hours "shifts", what's going on up in Harlem.
George left me with two storage-areas full of books; this was one of the ones I culled for myself before sending the rest off to a used-book dealer (believe me, even 10 years ago you couldn't GIVE away used books). Not sure how or where I can use this information (or the straight dope on the administrative composition of ninth-century bedouin tribal regiments stationed in Persia, for that matter), but for a writer, nothing is ever wasted or lost.
A cool morning. Pale sunlight through clouds and the soft rumble of the office heater. Reading the autumn haikus:
Harvest moon,
northland weather,
uncertain skies.
Basho
George left me with two storage-areas full of books; this was one of the ones I culled for myself before sending the rest off to a used-book dealer (believe me, even 10 years ago you couldn't GIVE away used books). Not sure how or where I can use this information (or the straight dope on the administrative composition of ninth-century bedouin tribal regiments stationed in Persia, for that matter), but for a writer, nothing is ever wasted or lost.
A cool morning. Pale sunlight through clouds and the soft rumble of the office heater. Reading the autumn haikus:
Harvest moon,
northland weather,
uncertain skies.
Basho
November 10, 2011
Magistrates of Hell
Turned in the manuscript Monday, got back word from the editor this morning saying she loved it. VERY little editing to do, she said - just touch-ups and niggles. It should be released in the UK in March, and here in July.
In case I haven't said so already, The Magistrates of Hell takes place in October-November of 1912, in Beijing (which was called Peking then, and is so in the book); the first year of the new Chinese Republic. Asher and Lydia are there with old Professor Karlebach, Asher's old mentor from Prague who turns out to be a vampire-hunter, on the trail of zombies who might or might not be related to vampires. All - including Ysidro - are worried about the Peking vampires, who might or might not be behind the whole thing. It's hard to tell, since you never see them and even Ysidro can't locate them.
Thank you, thank you ALL for your assistance!
Rain coming in tomorrow, allegedly; the air feels very soft and strange.
In case I haven't said so already, The Magistrates of Hell takes place in October-November of 1912, in Beijing (which was called Peking then, and is so in the book); the first year of the new Chinese Republic. Asher and Lydia are there with old Professor Karlebach, Asher's old mentor from Prague who turns out to be a vampire-hunter, on the trail of zombies who might or might not be related to vampires. All - including Ysidro - are worried about the Peking vampires, who might or might not be behind the whole thing. It's hard to tell, since you never see them and even Ysidro can't locate them.
Thank you, thank you ALL for your assistance!
Rain coming in tomorrow, allegedly; the air feels very soft and strange.
November 9, 2011
Smoke and chill
Scents of autumn: fireplace-smoke on the air, as I take my walk in the evenings; the smell of burning dust, the first time the heater gets fired up for the winter. Smells always touch very deep, direct wormholes through to childhood. We had a fireplace in the house I grew up in, and the smell of a fire starting there on cold mornings is something I have always missed.
WAY chilly nights and mornings, and more rain predicted for the weekend.
What I hope will be the final version of Magistrates of Hell went off on the ether-waves to Severn House Monday morning.
Two new projects started - a new Antryg novella (got a good long running start Sunday) and another can't-talk-about-it project which may or may not materialize.
WAY chilly nights and mornings, and more rain predicted for the weekend.
What I hope will be the final version of Magistrates of Hell went off on the ether-waves to Severn House Monday morning.
Two new projects started - a new Antryg novella (got a good long running start Sunday) and another can't-talk-about-it project which may or may not materialize.
October 30, 2011
tea and laundry
The joys of a peaceful afternoon; mild autumn weather, the last red roses in bloom, doing laundry, drinking mint tea, and working through the final polish of The Magistrates of Hell prior to turning it in early next week. A lovely Halloween party last night at the Nivens', and the usual amazement at seeing the huge displays of Halloween decorations laid on by their neighbors (they live in a VERY posh area); makes Disney's haunted mansion look like the inflatable goblins of my neighbor down the street.
Halloween Night tomorrow - meaning, lights out and hide in the back room.
Halloween Night tomorrow - meaning, lights out and hide in the back room.
October 26, 2011
VERY late getting to campus today. However, I would far r...
VERY late getting to campus today. However, I would far rather be the one who's sitting in stopped traffic in my air-conditioned car listening to the Beach Boys on my iPod, than the one sitting beside the freeway with a wrecked car surrounded by flashing cop-car lights... if nothing worse.
October 24, 2011
Wann that aprill...
As Mr. Chaucer so rightly puts it, spring is the time for pilgrimages... and I've just been asked to the second one for this spring. At the end of March, I'll be appearing on a couple of panels at the Tennessee WIlliams Festival in New Orleans; in mid-April, I'll be at the Texas Library Association's convention in Houston. On both occasions, I'll be talking about the Ben January series (while hammering away to finish Book # 12 -
Root, Hog, or Die
- before deadline).
Prior to that, I'll be at LosCon - the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society's annual convention - on Thanksgiving weekend as usual, and also at Gallifrey, the local Dr. Who convention, in February. (Last year's LosCon was difficult and strange for me, since one of my cats had just come down with a medical condition which led ultimately to his lingering death. This year's, I hope, will be better).
And that's about as much travel as I think I'd be able to deal with, but we'll see...
In the meantime, I turned in Magistrates of Hell this morning (with the caveat that I'm still checking on the Chinese - thank you, mayliang!) so I'm waiting to hear how they like it.
And now, back to grading exams.
Prior to that, I'll be at LosCon - the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society's annual convention - on Thanksgiving weekend as usual, and also at Gallifrey, the local Dr. Who convention, in February. (Last year's LosCon was difficult and strange for me, since one of my cats had just come down with a medical condition which led ultimately to his lingering death. This year's, I hope, will be better).
And that's about as much travel as I think I'd be able to deal with, but we'll see...
In the meantime, I turned in Magistrates of Hell this morning (with the caveat that I'm still checking on the Chinese - thank you, mayliang!) so I'm waiting to hear how they like it.
And now, back to grading exams.
