Marie Brennan's Blog, page 75
July 29, 2019
Where to find me at WorldCon!
I have my schedule for Dublin WorldCon! If you’re going to be there, do try to catch me at some point and say hi.
What has science ever done for art?
Format: Panel
15 Aug 2019, Thursday 18:00 – 18:50, Liffey Room-1 (CCD)
From the making of art materials to the understanding of anatomy, what scientific discoveries have helped to make art what it is today?
Grzegorz Aleksander Biały (Atelier Improwizacji), Tom Toner (Gollancz), Marie Brennan
Stories from other media turned into games
Format: Panel
16 Aug 2019, Friday 12:00 – 12:50, ECOCEM Room (CCD)
From the transition of ‘select-your own adventure’ books to Douglas Adams’ first computer game version of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, storytellers have been happy to entice their audience to play in their worlds through games. What are the different ways they done this? Which stories have transitioned well? Which have not?
Michael Cule (M), Rebecca Slitt (Choice of Games LLC), William C. Tracy (Space Wizard Science Fantasy), Marie Brennan, Keith Byrne (Tantalus)
Autographs: Friday at 14:00
Format: Autographing
16 Aug 2019, Friday 14:00 – 14:50, Level 4 Foyer (CCD)
Victoria “V.E.” Schwab (Tor Books, Titan, HarperCollins, Scholastic), Marie Brennan, Sarah Pinsker (SFWA), Taiyo Fujii (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan), Sam Hawke, Mary Turzillo
Reading: Marie Brennan
Format: Reading
17 Aug 2019, Saturday 13:30 – 13:50, Liffey Room-3 (Readings) (CCD)
The bare bones of worldbuilding: archaeology in SFF
Format: Panel
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 10:00 – 10:50, Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)
Whether it’s an actual archaeological dig looking for evidence of alien civilisations or fantasy characters camping in the ruins of their ancestors, archaeological evidence and research can be used to help develop a world beyond the here and now and add complex layers to a story without the need for exposition. The panel will discuss the ways in which archaeology has been used to deepen SFF worldbuilding and storytelling.
Ehud Maimon (M), Dr Katrin Kania (pallia – Mittelalter hautnah), Alyc Helms, Marie Brennan
Kaffeeklatsch: Marie Brennan
Format: Kaffeeklatsch
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 11:00 – 11:50, Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)
Dragons, wyrms, and serpents: why the myth endures
Format: Panel
19 Aug 2019, Monday 12:00 – 12:50, Wicklow Hall 2A (Dances) (CCD)
There are a lot of mythical beasts that can and do feature in fantasy, but the dragon/wyrm/serpent seems to be one of the most popular. What are the reasons for this enduring popularity? What roles does it perform? What mythic properties does it embody and why do these continue to resonate (if they do)?
Marie Brennan, Karen Simpson Nikakis (SOV Consulting LLC -SOV Media) (M), Aliette de Bodard, Naomi Novik, Joey Yu (Kino Eye Ltd. / Freelance)
It’s going to be a busy few days . . .
The post Where to find me at WorldCon! appeared first on Swan Tower.
July 26, 2019
New Worlds: Vaccination
I was fascinated when I found out that vaccination against disease goes back centuries further than I thought. So this week on the New Worlds Patreon, we’re talking about immunization — and how the technology to do it (at least for smallpox) is available in pretty much any century! Comment over there . . .
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July 23, 2019
Too little, too late
I’ve been watching a little of the ITV Agatha Christie’s Marple series, and enjoying Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple quite a lot — she does a lovely job contrasting her mild manner and soft voice with her sharp awareness of murder and what drives people to it. But I’m burning out very rapidly, and not for any reasons to do with the show itself. Instead it’s a matter of genre — and my fundamental problem with murder mysteries.
They are, a priori, about a bad thing having already happened. The best the protagonists can do is to try and deliver justice after the fact.
In a few cases they may forestall a subsequent murder, e.g. in the case of a serial killer going after their next victim. But in many cases shows try to raise the stakes by whacking a second person along the way, so now the detective or cop or whoever is playing cleanup to two horrible crimes. Sometimes more.
I’ve been re-watching Veronica Mars with my husband (who’s never seen most of it before), and while the metaplot of season one is indeed about a murder, the individual episode mysteries are about other crimes. Somebody has been conned out of their money, or a car’s been stolen, or a father has gone missing. I think that’s a large part of why I’m able to take the show in larger doses than I can take murder mysteries these days. In those plots, it’s possible to make people whole — to not just get justice, but to undo or at least significantly mitigate the harm.
These days, I think I need that. I mean, it’s not to say that non-mystery novels don’t frequently involve bad things happening that can’t be put right; obviously they do. But it feels different to me when the entire raison d’etre of the series is to have people die, again and again, with the heroes only taking action after that’s happened.
That mode wears on me after a while, even when counterbalanced by a charming old lady. Which is why I think I’ll be turning to something else soon, no matter how adorable Geraldine McEwan is as Miss Marple.
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July 22, 2019
Let’s turn some darkness into light!
Let’s sweeten the pot a little for the RAICES fundraiser.
I just got my author copies for the UK edition of Turning Darkness Into Light. Normally I price trade paperbacks at $12, but this is a month before the book comes out, and it’s for a good cause. So if you donate $25 to RAICES, you can get a signed copy ahead of time.
First come, first served. Drop me a line.
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New Worlds: Germs and Bad Air
This didn’t go up on Friday, but better late than never: medical month continues in the New Worlds Patreon with germs and bad air! Competing theories for what causes disease, which overlapped just often enough to obscure the fact that one of them was wrong. Comment over there!
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July 18, 2019
The RAICES fundraiser returns/continues
Last year I ran a fundraiser for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services in Texas. Since then, things have only gotten worse, with the United States government operating concentration camps to imprison immigrants.
The fundraiser technically never ended, because it’s always a good time to donate to RAICES. But after a year, it has naturally slipped off people’s radars, so I’m officially renewing it. The plan is the same as before: I’m “selling” books, i.e. you donate the money to RAICES and get books in return.
It goes like this:
1) Peruse the book list below and find one or more books you want.
2) Contact me to verify those books are still available (I’ll update the list, but stock sometimes changes quickly).
3) Once I’ve confirmed, donate to RAICES and send me a copy of the receipt (with your personal information blacked out).
4) I mail you books, signed and personalized if you wish.
I’m willing to ship internationally, but because of the cost involved there, I’ll ask you to PayPal me money to cover shipping expenses. (I’ll cover shipping with in the U.S. myself.)
I’ll note that at this stage my stock is very skewed toward the end of the Memoirs of Lady Trent, and toward foreign-language editions. Sadly I haven’t sold any of my novels to a Spanish-language publisher, but if you have any interest in practicing your German, Romanian, Polish, or Russian, I think any and all embracing of foreign languages is an appropriate response to this kind of xenophobia and bigotry.
Current total (including 2018): $820
The Stock List
A Natural History of Dragons , audiobook on CD (2 copies) — $35
A Natural History of Dragons , Romanian translation, trade paperback (1 copy) — $10
The Tropic of Serpents , German translation, trade paperback (1 copy) — $10
The Tropic of Serpents , Polish translation, trade paperback (2 copies) — $10
The Tropic of Serpents , Russian translation, hardcover — $10 SOLD OUT
Voyage of the Basilisk , German translation, trade paperback (2 copies) — $10
Voyage of the Basilisk , Polish translation, trade paperback (3 copies) — $10
Voyage of the Basilisk , Russian translation, hardcover — $10 SOLD OUT
In the Labyrinth of Drakes , US hardcover (3 copies) — $20
In the Labyrinth of Drakes , German translation, trade paperback (4 copies) — $10
In the Labyrinth of Drakes , Russian translation, hardcover (1 copy) — $10
Within the Sanctuary of Wings , US hardcover (14 copies) — $20
Within the Sanctuary of Wings , UK trade paperback (1 copy) — $12
Within the Sanctuary of Wings , audiobook on CD (2 copies) — $35
Within the Sanctuary of Wings , German translation, trade paperback (3 copies) — $10
A Star Shall Fall , UK trade paperback (2 copies) — $12
With Fate Conspire , UK trade paperback (1 copy) — $12
Lightning in the Blood , US trade paperback (3 copies) — $8
Witch , US mass-market paperback (20 copies) — $6
As of it tailing off last year, the fundraiser had netted $790 for RAICES. I’d love to see that clear a round $1000 if possible — can you help us get there?
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July 17, 2019
Doppelganger in a Humble Bundle!
I’m delighted to announce that the two Doppelganger novels, Warrior and Witch, are in a Humble Bundle curated by my agency!
The usual Humble Bundle setup applies: the amount you pay unlocks more books as you go along, until for $15 you get 26 books. It’s an incredible deal, and you’ll get a sampling of a great set of authors, including Aliette de Bodard, Tanya Huff, Simon Green, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Charlaine Harris, Jack Campbell, and more. The bundle is available for two weeks (i.e. ending July 31st), but there’s no reason to wait — get ’em now!
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July 12, 2019
New Worlds: Plagues
As befits the material, the topic of epidemics expanded wildly out of proportion with the rest of last week’s essay on disease in general — so this week, the New Worlds Patreon is talking about plagues and their effect on society. Grim stuff, but hugely influential in history, to a degree I think we sometimes underestimate in modern times. Comment over there!
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July 5, 2019
New Worlds: Disease
My lovely Topic Backers for the New Worlds Patreon have selected “medicine” as this month’s theme — which was supposed to begin with a different essay, only halfway through writing it I realized that a) it needed to be two essays and b) I had also started in the wrong place. So we begin with disease itself, and the mind-boggling extent of its effect on our history and our world. Comment over there!
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July 2, 2019
Moderation in all things
The more time passes, the less patience I have with the notion that “a real writer writes every day.”
Try subbing in some other words there and see how that sentence sounds. “A real teacher teaches every day.” “A real programmer programs every day.” “A real surgeon performs surgery every day.” These are all patently absurd. The teacher, the programmer, and the surgeon are all better at their jobs for not going to work every day. For taking some days off.
I wonder if what’s going on here is a weird collision between the romanticization of ~art~ and the #@$*%! “Protestant work ethic.” On the one hand you have this sense that writing, or any art, is a ~calling~. And if it doesn’t call to you every day, why, then, you’re not a real writer, are you? On the other hand you’ve got Max Weber frowning over your shoulder and questioning whether what you’re doing is Real Work — so you have to silence him by keeping your nose to the grindstone every day, without respite, because otherwise clearly you’re just a good-for-nothing layabout.
(I’d like to pause and appreciate the value of the tilde for indicating a kind of vaporous awe around a word. Italics just don’t convey the same effect, and neither do quotation marks.)
Writing is Real Work. It may be fun work (a thought that would probably horrify the Calvinists Weber had in mind), but it requires effort, concentration, hours of your life. Some days it’s easier than others. But it’s also weird work, in that sometimes the most vitally useful thing you can do is go for a walk or wash some dishes, because while you’re not looking, your brain sneaks off and figures stuff out. When people ask me how many hours I work each day or week, my response is to give them a baffled shrug, because there aren’t clean boundaries around it; I’m definitely working while I’m drafting a story or answering emails or going over page proofs, but I also may be working while I’m vacuuming the rug or brushing my teeth or reading a book. Which means that days in which I’m not at the keyboard may still in some fashion be work days — but thinking of them that way is pernicious. If an idea comes to me, awesome, but in the meanwhile I’m going to have a life.
Because contrary to what corporate America wants us all to believe, we can have lives outside our jobs, and we should. We will not just be better employees for the time off; we’ll be better people, too. And that’s just as true of writers as it is of anybody else.
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