Marie Brennan's Blog, page 251

I'm perfectly capable of speaking for myself.

Kate Elliott on authorial intent.

Word.

I'm smart enough not to respond publicly to reviews, of course; that pretty much never ends well. But if you want to know which ones get up my nose the worst, it's the ones that make unfounded declarations about what was in my head while writing. If you read a particular thing out of the story, fine -- far be it from me to say ur doin it wrong. But please don't claim you know why I did things that way.

Mind you, the line between the two isn't entirely c...

last chance to bid

I'll be at a wedding tomorrow, so this is your final heads-up (from me, anyway) that the help_pakistan auctions end tomorrow. Lots of great stuff on offer over there, and a chance to win your own bit of Onyx Court secret history in the name of flood relief. Go forth and do good!

there's always one more thing to fix

It didn't even occur to me that part of the American-ness of the copyediting for the Onyx Court books was the order of dates: August 26, when the British would be more likely to order it as 26 August.

But somebody pointed that out over on the BCS forums, so we've gone in and changed the ordering on the dates for "And Blow Them at the Moon." My apologies for the error; we went with British spellings (everywhere we could spot them, anyway), but didn't think to change the date formatting.

everything but the kitchen sink

For a while now, I've been thinking of this novel as the most Tim Powers-ish of the Onyx Court series, where Tim Powers-ness is defined as ramming a bunch of unrelated things together until a plot falls out. So far, some of the unrelated things chucked into here include the Underground, spiritualism, photography, Irish nationalist terrorism, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, the West Ham disappearances, and Bazalgette's sewers, and now my plot has decided it needs absinthe to function right....

It's 'splody time . . . .

<bounce> I've been looking forward to this.

"And Blow Them at the Moon" has gone live at Beneath Ceaseless Skies . This is an Onyx Court story (though not the one I sold yesterday), and I am very pleased with how it's turned out. It also constitutes the last pre-publication goodie for A Star Shall Fall, which comes out (eek) next Tuesday; Magrat, the main character from this story, will be showing up in the novel, too.

And, because chances to win a signed copy of the book are just FALLING OUT...

Go wish Laura Anne Gilman a happy birthday

If you want, not just a signed copy of A Star Shall Fall, but a whole stack of other books, go wish Laura Anne Gilman a happy birthday. That's right, she's celebrating by giving other people presents, in proper hobbit style.

Plus you can comment on the Sirens LJ for a book giveaway, as I mentioned yesterday, and there will be a third opportunity cropping up before long. It's books, books, everywhere you look!

Norilana signal boost

You may not know who Norilana Books or Vera Nazarian are, but you've heard of some of what they do, because they're the lovely people who put out the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies.

It's their fourth anniversary of being in business, and I cannot encourage you enough to go buy something from their site. The CP books particularly, because Mike Allen's done a fabulous job with them -- and I don't just say that because he's bought three stories from me -- but they're also the ones who have taken ...

the Onyx Court news keeps rolling in

If you've looked at the Onyx Court charity auction, you've seen my note about how I may end up writing a short story from the historical prompt the winner chooses. That was, in fact, the outcome of the original auction, for the Haitian earthquake relief; in writing a summary for the winner, I thought of a way to frame it as a short story. So I wrote it, and I sent it out, and now Beneath Ceaseless Skies has bought it! The story is "Two Pretenders," and I count it as Onyx Court continuity, ...

Nifty!

My author copy of the German omnibus edition of Doppelgänger and Hexenkrieger just showed up. It's hardcover, and has new cover art and everything! Verra shiny, sez I.

100K! (At *last*.)

Various things slowed the forward progress, but I finally have crossed the 100K mark on the Victorian book last night. Huzzah!

For those who missed it over the weekend, I'm doing another Onyx Court secret history auction for help_pakistan . Bidding has begun; you have until Saturday to make your own.