Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 69

"The North Wind Speaks" (part 27)

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She shakes her head,
(continued tomorrow)


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"The North Wind Speaks" (part 26)

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does not answer.
(Continued tomorrow)


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The North Wind Speaks (part 25 & to date)

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                                                                   our sister

(continued tomorrow)


And because we're closing in on the end . . .

Here's the text of "The North Wind Speaks" to date:

 My sister comes rustling through the birch woods.  Gentle she is, but restless, aloof, and intent on her search.

What is the East Wind looking for?  If only      
she’d tell us! She has a thousand brothers   and we are all devoted to her welfare. 

 Is it a faithless lover?  We’ll track the bastard down and kill him.  A lost child?  As good as  found and returned.  The answer to a cunning riddle posed her by a sphinx?  We know everythingthere is to know.

 But when we ask, our sister... 

The story-or-prose-poem will be concluded on (of course) the 31st of October.


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The North Wind Speaks (part 24)

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But when we ask
(continued tomorrow)


And mea culpa . . .

I lost my phone yesterday. The leaf-story pictures were on it, so I was not able to upload them to my blog in a timely manner. I apologize for that. Today's (Fridaay's) blog will be posted this afternoon.


And today's diagrams . . .



These are the last of the lot. After this, I know where the plot is going and don't need to scry into the future with diagrams.

The top diagram shows the relationship between Aerth, Faerie, and the Empyrean. Souls move from Aerth to Faerie, dragons from the Empyrean to Faerie, and trains connect the three worlds. It didn't occur to me until just now that the three worlds are engaged in their version of the triangular trade that is the chief cause of America's original sin--slavery. But the past extends its roots deep into the present.

The middle diagram shows a simplified relationship of Earth, Air, and Sea. Though, as my notation says, in actuality The relationship goes beyond complex.

The bottom diagram plots Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.  As the notation says:

One spews One chews     One mops up
All three diagrams are probably simply aspects of the One True Diagram. But I'd be lying if I said I could map the elements against the worlds against the fates. So that will have to remain unexplained.


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Tales of Old Earth -- E-Book Sale Saturday!

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I've just been told that the e-book of Tales of Old Earth will go on sale this Saturday for one day only.

So on Saturday, October 25, you can buy it for only $2.99.

This is a great opportunity for ebook readers who are not familiar with my short fiction but would like to be. You know who you are.

Here's the table of contents:
.The Very Pulse of the Machine
The Dead       
Scherzo with Tyrannosaur     Ancient Engines         
North of Diddy-Wah-Diddy 
The Mask      
Mother Grasshopper 
Riding the Giganotosaur         Wild Minds     The Raggle Taggle Gypsy-O 
Microcosmic Dog
In Concert       Radiant Doors
Ice Age            Walking Out   
The Changeling's Tale
Midnight Express       The Wisdom of Old Earth     
Radio Waves
Which I feel, and I hope you agree, is a lot of fiction for the money.

And "The North Wind Speaks" (part 23) . . .




there is


to know.

And today's diagram . . .



This is a simple diagram showing Cat's and Raven's jaunt into the past. It starts and ends at the Witch House,  descends into Brocielande Station, proceeds to the Great River, crosses the Bridge and finally comes to the Village, there to encounter both Enna and the elders. You can tell I have a good idea of what is to come by how tidy it all looks.

Various thoughts are thrown off by the diagram and at teh bottom of the page is a rather rudimentary sketch of the Ruins of Ys. I had not yet a clear idea of what Cat would find when she gained her goal.


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The North Wind Speaks (part 22)

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We know everything
(continued tomorrow0


And today's diagram . . .


Here, scrawled because the writing is coming fast, is a quick diagram of the Bombing of Bocielande Station section, which is, as I wrote inside the red circle, the atrocity at the heart of the novels. It begins with The last Esso station , its back-lit [sign] sinking below the trees like the setting moon. (Extra points to anyone who recognizes that pop-art icon.) Then it goes Into the Fairy Tale Woods and into the past to Brocielande Station. From there, the action goes into the Debatable Hills and then makes a return to the Fairy Tale Woods, of course.

Not that I call them that in the novel.

All of which is in order to introduce Will to Blind Enna.


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Home from Capclave

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I'm home from Capclave and can report that I had a very pleasant time. Some of my seven panels were better than others but impartial witnesses told me that they were all good. (This is not bragging on my part; it takes all the panelists working together to make one of these things fly.)

I heard that part of the reason the panels worked so well was that the Program committee removed one track of programming, resulting in larger audiences at all the panels. And there is nothing that will make a panel work half so well as an engaged audience. Except when two of the panelists get so angry with each other that they threaten to begin slamming each other with the folding chairs. But I haven't been involved in that kind of melee for years.

For my money, the best panels were the two dinosaur panels featuring paleontologists Tom Holtz and Michael Brett-Surman. Partly because they're both engaging speakers but mostly because their knowledge of the subject was encyclopedic. I was on one panel and Robert Sawyer (who, remember, originally intended to become a paleontologist himself) was on both. Before the one we both sat on, we agreed that our role was mostly to keep our mouths shut and ask respectful questions.

Not easy for either of us, but we managed.


And "The North Wind Speaks" (part 21) . . .


posed by a sphinx?
(continued tomorrow)


And today's diagram . . .


In this diagram I show all the major influences on Cat (and Helen) at the point shortly before she journeys to Ys. Esme and Raven, of course. Barquentine and Saoirse, regrettably. The Baldwynn and the Goddess inevitably. Remarkably, Fingolfinrhod and Dahut merc'h Gradlon haven't been factored in. Even more surprisingly, I seem to have been toying with the possibility of dangling a romance between Cat (at that time Kate Gallowglass) and Barquentine before the reader. Anybody who's read the The Iron Dragon's Mother knows how implausible that would be. (Though I was playing with the tropes of the Romance genre there.)

And the purpose of the diagram? To make certain I wasn't overlooking anybody. There were a lot of characters in play by then.


Above (l-r) Tom Holtz, dodo, Michael Brett-Surman.

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October 21

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I'm home from Capclave and can report that I had a very pleasant time. Some of my seven panels were better than others but impartial witnesses told me that they were all good. (This is not bragging on my part; it takes all the panelists working together to make one of these things fly.)

I heard that part of the reason the panels worked so well was that the Program committee removed one track of programming, resulting in larger audiences at all the panels. And there is nothing that will make a panel work half so well as an engaged audience. Except when two of the panelists get so angry with each other that they threaten to begin slamming each other with the folding chairs. But I haven't been involved in that kind of melee for years.

For my money, the best panels were the two dinosaur panels featuring paleontologists Tom Holtz and Michael Brett-Surman. Partly because they're both engaging speakers but mostly because their knowledge of the subject was encyclopedic. I was on one panel and Robert Sawyer (who, remember, originally intended to become a paleontologist himself) was on both. Before the one we both sat on, we agreed that our role was mostly to keep our mouths shut and ask respectful questions.

Not easy for either of us, but we managed.


And "The North Wind Speaks" (part 21) . . .


posed by a sphinx?
(continued tomorrow)


And today's diagram . . .


In this diagram I show all the major influences on Cat (and Helen) at the point shortly before she journeys to Ys. Esme and Raven, of course. Barquentine and Saoirse, regrettably. The Baldwynn and the Goddess inevitably. Remarkably, Fingolfinrhod and Dahut merc'h Gradlon haven't been factored in. Even more surprisingly, I seem to have been toying with the possibility of dangling a romance between Cat (at that time Kate Gallowglass) and Barquentine before the reader. Anybody who's read the The Iron Dragon's Mother knows how implausible that would be. (Though I was playing with the tropes of the Romance genre there.)

And the purpose of the diagram? To make certain I wasn't overlooking anybody. There were a lot of characters in play by then.


Above (l-r) Tom Holtz, dodo, Michael Brett-Surman.
 
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The North Wind Speaks (part 20)

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a cunning riddle
(continued tomorrow)


And today . . .

There is no diagram today.  Consider this a day of rest.


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The North Wind Speaks (part 19)

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The answer to

And today's diagram . . .



This one's easy. It's an organization cart for the Conspiracy.  If you haven't read the novel, you should avoid reading the chart because it does give away some of the plot.

At the top is an absentee Chief Conspiratorial Officer. Under whom are two co-equals, the Chief Acting Head and the Temporary Chief Officer.  (They became the Acting Chief Conspirator and Temporary Head Conspirator in the novel.)  Beneath them are Shipping and REceiving, Employee resources (Lord Pleiades) , the Department of Corruption (A. Frowst) and the Department of Persecution (J. Squarefoot) The departments of Research and Blackmail are under the Department of Corruption. Clerical & Data Entry (Missy Argent) answers to both Corruption and Persecution and thus can play one off against he other. At the very bottom are Clerical Services (Lolly Underpol) and Computers.

Back when I worked for the National Solar Heating and Cooling Information Center, I was answerable to two dotted-line bosses and, let me tell you, it was a strange situation to be in.


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