Marie Brennan's Blog, page 80
March 13, 2019
Miss Sherlock
You remember some years ago, when Elementary premiered and people were so excited about the casting of Watson as an Asian-American woman?
Meet Miss Sherlock.
It’s a Japanese adaptation — live-action, not anime — where both leads are women. Even now, it’s still vanishingly rare to watch a woman get to be the character so brilliant everybody puts up with her complete lack of manners; add the layer that it’s a Japanese woman, and the effect is kind of startling. She barges into someone’s apartment with Watson (or rather, Wato-san) chasing after her wailing “SHOES!!!!”; after Sherlock, with clear irritation, takes her shoes off like a civilized human being should, she winds up storming out barefoot while Wato-san chases her again yelling “SHOES!!!!”, this time for the opposite reason.
There are so many mystery shows on TV these days that any given one tends to live and die not by its clever plots, but by its characters and their dynamics. I really like both of the main actresses here. Wato-san is adorable, and though she doesn’t measure up to Sherlock’s genius, she gets to have a personal life outside of being Sherlock’s designated apologizer. And Sherlock herself is elegant and sharp, with a ferocious smile. But when a villain starts monologuing about their reasons for the crime, Sherlock collapses onto the nearest couch with her hands over her ears and an expression that says “poke me when they’re done.”
I also like several of the side characters. Inspector Reimon, the Lestrade stand-in, is nice but not all that memorable, but my sister and I instantly shipped with Wato-san with his sidekick, Shibata, who is perfectly competent and has no patience with Sherlock’s b.s. — quite understandable given that he often takes the brunt of it. By contrast, Hatano-san, aka Mrs. Hudson, manages Sherlock quite nicely. Mycroft isn’t notably Mycroft-y — he’s fine, but not more brilliant than his sister — and, well, I won’t say anything about Moriarty, because spoilers.
The plots themselves range around a bit in terms of quality. Mostly good, but toward the end of the season it falls down a bit; Sherlock commits one unforgivably stupid mistake, and the villain’s ability to mess with people gets cranked up beyond plausiblity. Also, it is occasionally more gruesome than I expected, so if that’s an issue for you, be warned. (Not slasher porn levels of gruesome, just “wow, I didn’t expect you to show that wound directly and then shove somebody’s hand in it.”) But I very much hope they get a second season, because I would happily watch another eight episodes of this.
We watched it on HBO’s app; not sure where else it might be available. For those who are interested. 
March 8, 2019
New Worlds: Public Sanitation
This week’s New Worlds Patreon essay delves into that most fragrant of topics: sanitation! To bait you into clicking that link rather than going “ew, no thanks,” I will use my favorite piece of historical trivia on this topic, which is that there was a time and place in history where human waste was so valuable, people literally stole it. To find out where, when, and why, head on over to Book View Cafe!
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March 7, 2019
Caveat clicker
Apparently several of my old blog posts just appeared on people’s Dreamdwidth friendslists. All of them reference gambling, and had spam links inserted into them that were NOT there before. From this I conclude that my account was hacked somehow.
I’ve changed my password and edited those links out of the posts. But if you’ve seen things posted from me today that aren’t “On Cruising,” “Wheel of Time side post: On Women,” and “A Memory of Light Liveblog Part 2,” please let me know, so I can go clean them up. And if you’re getting comments suddenly on old posts of yours, check to see if they’ve been interfered with, too.
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March 6, 2019
Book pre-orders and post backlogs
With the second year of the New Worlds Patreon having wrapped up, it’s time for it to emerge from its chrysalis as a beautiful butterfly ebook! New Worlds, Year Two: More Essays on the Art of Worldbuilding is now up for pre-order at Amazon US and UK, Barnes and Noble (Nook), Google Play, and Kobo. iTunes and Indigo will follow shortly. The book will be out on April 2nd!
Also, a glitch with the plug-in I use to crosspost from my website to Dreamwidth recently glitched. Everything still crossposted . . . but on a private setting, which means none of you could see it. So if you missed it, the posts were, in sequence:
Get yer fairy tales on! (pre-orders for Never After )
New Worlds: Honeymoons (or you can just click directly through to essay itself)
Never After is out now! (rather redundant with the above, now)
New Worlds: Just Add Water (and Year Three!) (get to it directly here)
Books read, February 2019 (I read . . . a LOT of books for such a short month)
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March 4, 2019
Goat cheese
The other day I was at the grocery store, and the cheese counter had samples out of something. Another customer was standing between me and the actual blocks of cheese the samples were taken from, so I had no idea what they were, but I went ahead and popped one in my mouth.
Train of thought: “Oh, wow, this is amazing, this is — UGH BLEAGH IT’S GOAT CHEESE GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT.”
I have no idea what’s going on chemically with goat cheese, but invariably I have this type of reaction, where for a second or two it’s lovely, and then I get hit by a freight train of something so unpleasantly pungent, it lingers with me for a good five minutes afterward. Much as with cilantro, I don’t think I could train myself into liking it if I tried for a year: when that taste kicks in, my brain utterly rejects the possibility that what I’m eating is food.
Those of you who like goat cheese — is that pungency a selling point for you? Or does it not even hit you in the same way? (Wikipedia describes goat’s cheese as “tart,” which is not remotely the taste I get off it.) I’m wondering if this is anything like the “supertaster” deal where some people can’t taste phenylthiocarbamide or propylthiouracil, while for others (I’m one) they are unspeakably bitter. I know my reaction to cheese in general is linked to the fact that I have a very strong sense of smell; your stinkier classes of cheese are Right Out for me because all I wind up tasting is the stink. But this wasn’t a strong-smelling cheese, and it still bowled me over with that unpleasant funk two seconds after I bit down. So I’m kind of curious what’s going on there, chemically speaking, and whether the experience is just qualitatively different for people who like the stuff.
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March 3, 2019
Books read, February 2019
This was an extremely reading-ful month.
Tales of the Continuing Time and Other Stories, Daniel Keys Moran. Some collections of short fiction are a great entry point into a series, a way to get a taster and see if you’d like the whole. This . . . is not that type of collection. 
March 1, 2019
New Worlds: Just Add Water (and Year Three!)
This week, the New Worlds Patreon launches into Year Three! As part of the celebration, I’ve added a monthly poll where my patrons at the $5 level and above can vote on the topic for the upcoming month . . . and my wonderful, amazing, fantabulous patrons voted for the thing I thought nobody than other me wanted to hear about, which is sanitation. So this month we’re starting off with water supplies, and in upcoming weeks I’ll be talking about bathing, trash heaps, and whether premodern cities really were open sewers or not.
The ebook for Year Two will be out in early April, with copies going to patrons at the $3 level and above before that. If you’d like to become a patron, you can do that right over here — let’s start Year Three together!
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February 26, 2019
NEVER AFTER is out now!
Get yer pipin’ hot flash-length fairy tales here!
. . . you guys? I have NO IDEA what has happened with this book. For some reason it blew all my previous stats for pre-orders completely out of the water, and it’s continued to do so after release. It has sold more copies in its first day (including pre-orders) than Monstrous Beauty did in its first six months — that being the most comparable title in terms of price ($0.99) and content (very brief fairy tale retellings). I can point to lots of other variables, of course: I published Monstrous Beauty in 2014; my audience has probably grown since then. That one is more directly horror; this one is lighter-hearted with its twists. Maybe this one has a better title. Maybe it has better cover art. Maybe maybe maybe. The truth is, I have no way of knowing. (And this is why the publishing industry has so much trouble predicting what will be a bestseller and what will sink.)
All I know is, this has completely warped the bar graph Amazon uses to show me my sales. There’s now this giant spike, next to which my normal daily sales have been compressed to itty-bitty nubbins.
February 25, 2019
New Worlds: Honeymoons (and anniversary announcement!)
In the excitement of Book View Cafe’s new hosting provider being stable enough for the New Worlds Patreon to return to its usual home, I forgot to announce the latest essay here! Last Friday’s contribution was on honeymoons, and you can still head on over and add your thoughts.
I’m also pleased to announce a book giveaway to celebrate the second anniversary of the Patreon! Six lucky patrons will receive signed books from me. If you’d like to have a chance at a prize, just sign up before this Friday!
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February 24, 2019
Get yer fairy tales on!
This missed posting for some reason, and I only just now noticed. But there is still time to pre-order!
*
About a year ago, I discovered that February 26th is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day.
Now, like many authors with an interest in folklore, I’ve tackled fairy tales before. I have a whole collection of them, Monstrous Beauty. But that represents only one part of my fairy tale ouevre — the part that’s the most horror-tinged. I have others.
And I thought, why not do something with those?
This happened about a year ago, so it was far too late to do anything for that year’s National Tell a Fairy Tale Day. But I looked ahead to 2019, and discovered that this year, February 26th would be a Tuesday — which is, traditionally, the day of the week when new books get released.
Ladies, gentlemen, and other civilized people, I give you Never After: Thirteen Twists on Familiar Tales. Available for pre-order now; due to be released — of course — two weeks days from now. It’s a tiny little thing; every one of those thirteen stories is flash-length, under 500 words, and two of them are about 100 words apiece, which is why the collection is priced at a mere $0.99 (or whatever that turns into in your local currency). You can pick up both that and Monstrous Beauty for two bucks, and have twenty fairy tales of variously warped sorts — the ones in Never After are not as dark as the ones in Monstrous Beauty, but I wouldn’t call them sweet and innocent, either . . .
Forget perfect princesses, handsome princes, and “happily ever after.” In this collection of thirteen flash-length fairy tale retellings, award-winning author Marie Brennan introduces you to a world of manipulative mirrors, treacherous pigs, and candy houses that will eat you right up. Each one is a subversive little gem, guaranteed to shock the Brothers Grimm.
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