Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 113

Possibly the best-Ever Title for a Blog Post

Over at tor.com: Let Gandalf Star in a Musical, You Cowards

I don’t know about you but I sure laughed. If anybody is considering a musical starring Gandalf, I was 100% unaware of that, but if this title isn’t literal, what in the world?

[W]hat McKellen wants is to star in a musical.

“I don’t feel I have much to prove in my career anymore, so why not just do the things I enjoy doing, like getting in front of an audience and entertaining them,” he told BBC Radio’s 4 Today.

Like so many other actors, McKellen appeared in Cats. He played Gus, the theatre cat, who seems to be a tired gent who sort of talk-sings. … In the BBC interview, McKellen said, “I can hold a tune but I’m not a proper singer.”

That’s good enough! (See: Rex Harrison’s entire career.) Surely we can find a musical that suits his talents. 

Ah, so no one else is exactly considering this, but Ian McKellen himself would like to star in a musical! Okay! Well, I’m totally on board with that. I enjoy musicals and I bet McKellen would do a great job even if he isn’t a proper singer.

Or, you know, they could make Rogers: The Musical a real thing. As far as I’m concerned, McKellen can play whichever of the Avengers he likes. It’s theater! He doesn’t actually have to punch anyone for real! Just let the magic happen.

Sounds good to me!

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Possibly the best-Ever Title for a Blog Post appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Up on Amazon: Keraunani and Black Dog Collection IV

As some of you know, but this is a more explicit post for anyone who drops by:

Keraunani is available right now

And Black Dog Stories IV is up for preorder:

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Up on Amazon: Keraunani and Black Dog Collection IV appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Progress Report: Things Are happening

Okay! This morning, I hit “Publish” for the Keranuani ebook. I bet that will be live by the end of the day, and hopefully linked to the series well before the Tuyo series sale starts on Jan 29th.

I don’t have the paperback cover yet, but I’ll hit publish on that as soon as I do. Everything is ready to go there as well.

I’m looking forward so much to you all getting to read Keraunani — I hope you all enjoy this book as much as I do!

This morning, I also finished up the final revision of and second proofreading pass through the 4th Black Dog collection. I’m pretty happy with these novellas, with the order I’ve got them in, with how each story feeds into the next or looks forward at the 5th novel, Silver Circle, and basically with everything to do with these stories. I’ll be sending them out to final proofreaders in a few minutes and look forward to loading final editions for preorder sometime this week.

Onward with Suelen, the Tuyo-world novella. That’s next, and since I do think the draft is in good shape, should be ready to go to first readers by the end of the week.

Kuomat, the Death’s-Lady-world novella, went out to first readers last week. I’ve asked the cover artist to schedule the cover for this one, so that’s in order.

I should be able to move forward with Invictus, the mostly finished SF novel, in February. This will be the first real project of 2022. I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t get stuck again with it, but I ought to have the story clear enough now to prevent that from happening.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Progress Report: Things Are happening appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

SFF Novels for Those of Us Who Just Don’t Want Stress

Are we recovering our enthusiasm for high-tension, high-stakes novels yet? I’m sure some of us are.

So far I’m still preferring low-tension, low-stakes stories. This is partly just an artifact of wanting to focus most of my attention on my own work, but I’m sure it’s also partly that I’m still (still!) not that interested in high-tension novels, even now.

I’m reading The Mask of Mirrors by MA Carrick, but very slowly. I like it a lot and I am looking forward to telling you about it when I finally finish it, but I keep taking breaks from it for one reason or another, and one of those reasons is that I keep hitting some high-tension moment and don’t want to deal with that and pause for a couple of days. (Another reason is that I got obsessive about finishing the Death’s Lady novella for a while.)

In the meantime, I’m also re-reading various low-stress novels, stories I’m familiar with and don’t have to stress over.

One of those is Exo by Steven Gould. This is the last book in the Jumper series. It can be read as a standalone. It’s about Cent (short for Millicent) getting her life in order and building her own private space program. It’s occasionally heavier on technical detail than I would prefer, but not too much so. The actual bad guys make various moves and are defeated in short order each time. I recommend it as a low-stress, cheerful story. The third book in the series, Impulse, could certainly be read first. It’s a girl-goes-to-school story; again Cent is the protagonist. Lots of dealing with bullies and so on. Again, the actual bad guys make a move. Again, they are quickly defeated. This book is also not particularly stressful, though not as thoroughly as Exo.

I realize it’s not out yet, but I hereby also recommend Keraunani as a low-tension story. Sure, Esau and various other people may find themselves in tight spots from time to time. And granted, I’m possibly not entirely unbiased here. But I’m pretty sure that no reader on the planet could imagine that anything terrible is actually going to happen to Esau, to Keraunani, or to any other named character. The tone ought to make that clear.

Anybody who’s got new suggestions for lower-stress SFF novels, by all means drop them in the comments! It’s going to be that kind of year for me, I’m pretty sure, and I bet many of us would also still like these kinds of stories.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post SFF Novels for Those of Us Who Just Don’t Want Stress appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Uphill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
   Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
   From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
   You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
   Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
   They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
   Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
   Yea, beds for all who come.

–Christina Rosetti

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Uphill appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Up for Preorder

The 4th Black Dog collection just went up for preorder. I’m listing it to release Feb 25th, which means I need to have the final version loaded to KDP by Feb 21. Which should not be a problem! It had BETTER not be a problem!

I’m doing final revisions now — that is, I am making the final decision about the order of the novellas and then I will read through them and add references from later stories back to the earlier ones in this collection. And I’m not perfectly happy with the ending of one of the stories and will probably wind up fiddling with that a little. But everything is basically finished.

Kim, I think you are probably right about putting Keziah’s story last. It honestly does read like a prequel to the next novel. Changing the order will be a pain in the neck for a couple different reasons. Not changing the order would be a pain in the neck for completely different reasons. There is no way to handle this that is not going to be annoying for me to smooth out. However, by Monday, I want to have made a final decision about the order of the stories and I want to have smoothed them out into that order.

Next week, I’ll complete the first proofing read of the combined III & IV stories and order the second preview copy of the paperback version. I will put the paper edition up for preorder as soon as I know the final page count.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Up for Preorder appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Keraunani cover

Here’s the final draft of the cover for Keraunani.

Yes, I did add falcon references to the text. It was easy — those references fit perfectly, it turns out.

I should get the final files today or at least very soon. Shortly thereafter, the book will pop up on Amazon. There will certainly be a paper edition, so if that doesn’t appear at quite the same time, it will soon.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Keraunani cover appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

A tour through Literature

Remember this one?

Is there anywhere an SFF novel with more literary allusions? I don’t think so.

Here’s a review of this book over at tor.com: Journeying through Literature: Silverlock by John Myers Myers

The story follows a rather unlikeable protagonist shipwrecked on an island whose inhabitants are characters from stories, literature, and legend. If the premise sounds a bit strange at first, it ends up working very well—the book is a delight from beginning to end. …

I didn’t love this book — the protagonist is a jerk for a long time — but for anybody familiar with classic literature, it’s something to pick up and at least try. If any of you have read it, what did you think?

Here, this link goes to the edition with the Silverlock Companion included. That’s the version that’s got glossaries and commentary and everything. I’d probably like it a lot better if I looked at the Companion material first and then tried re-reading the actual story.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post A tour through Literature appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Recentish Reading: House of Birds

So, some time ago, I copyedited a book for Steven Popkes called House of Birds. This has just been released, and, as I had a mental note to mention it, I’m glad I happened to notice that it has come out.

[image error]

This may be a hard sell, because I think a lot of us are still kind of leaning toward low-stress books. (At least, I am.) During the first third or whatever of this book, most life on Earth gets destroyed, including basically all humans. This is not exactly a scenario that would generally count as “low-stress,” I realize.

Even so, I do recommend it. This is the case even though I don’t particularly like many of the characters. (I told you it might be a hard sell.) I mean, the main protagonist, Ian, is fine. Plenty of the characters are okay. I can’t really even put my finger on why I didn’t find them especially emotionally engaging — maybe just because this is a quite cerebral story overall, focused far (far!) more on the worldbuilding than on the characters. That worked well for me in this case, because less emotional engagement meant that I wasn’t bothered by the destruction of the world.

But all of that is about stuff that is just okay or just tolerable or whatever. None of that is why I actually loved this book and zoomed through the back half of it doublequick.

What this book has in spades is the best dinosaurs ever.

After Earth is basically destroyed, Popkes creates a whole new ecology, based on dinosaurs but with many unique features, on Venus. There is a frame story that explains all this, but I don’t really care that much. I just loved the dinosaurs and the ecosystem, and the founding of a new quasi-human population, and all that part of the story.

So, despite destroying the world in the first part of the book, Popkes rebuilds a different world in the back part of the story, and that is enormously fun for anybody who loves dinosaurs or ecology or founding a new world or anything like that. I definitely recommend you check it out if any of that sounds like something you’d enjoy. I’m going to pick it up partly to see what’s changed since the draft I read. That’s always interesting.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Recentish Reading: House of Birds appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Coming up for 2022

In case you’re interested:

Here is my schedule of stuff to do during the first half of 2022:

1) Hit publish on Keraunani. I have seen a draft of the cover and expect to approve the final cover soon, probably this week. I will post it here, of course! As soon as a final cover is available, I will hit publish.

I’ve scheduled a sale for Tuyo and the whole series starting January 29, with the main sale going for five days. Keranauni should be up before that sale begins, barely. I will set the price low at first to try to capitalize on the series promotion, so you should all definitely pick it up when it drops. I’ll be putting prices for all the books back up, I don’t know, maybe not till the end of February. I hear the KU boost can last longer if you hold the prices down for a while.

2) Final revision of the Black Dog novellas and, simultaneously, first proofing.

3) Second proofread of the Black Dog novellas.

4) Put the 4th Black Dog collection, plus the paper version that collects III and IV together in one volume, both up for preorder.

5) Final proofread of the Black Dog novellas (this is when a couple of you will get the request to proofread).

Black Dog and that whole series will be on sale starting February 26th, and again, that sale will go for five days. Whether the 4th collection is up for preorder before that sale depends almost entirely on my ability to get the final revisions completed in a timely fashion; eg, preferably in the next few days. But most likely I will have it up for preorder well before that sale begins and set it to publish as the sale starts.

6) Revise Suelen, the Tuyo-world story about the Lau surgeon who goes into the winter country. Send that out to first readers. It’s in good shape right now, so I see no reason I can’t have this done quite soon. Then no doubt further revision, then proofing. I should have the cover in April, so I am thinking of May as the probable publication month.

7) Send Kuomat out to first readers. That should also be very soon, but as above, I expect I will be doing further revision when I get critiques back, and then of course proofing, plus I don’t want to overlap with Suelen, so publication perhaps in June. I better get the cover going here as well to make sure there isn’t a delay for that.

Here is my much more tentative schedule for later in 2022:

I hope I will be working on Invictus well before every item above gets checked off. My tentative goal is to have a draft finished before the end of this semester, which means in May. That is by no means a plan; that’s a goal and a hope. But if I can do that, this one would be finished and out for first readers, clearing the way for me to work on Tasmakat. Depending on how obsessive that one gets, it might not take too direly long to write, but summer is a very good time for me to focus on a demanding project.

After Tasmakat, I will think about Silver Circle.

But also, after Tasmakat, if I haven’t already done so, I will probably take a break.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Coming up for 2022 appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.