N.S. Dolkart's Blog, page 3
June 22, 2018
Book 3 Cover Reveal!
So you know how the third book of my Godserfs trilogy is coming out October 2nd, right? Have you all seen the cover? Because if you haven’t, you should.
Andreas Rocha has produced another gorgeous cover and I have to say, I think this one is my favorite. Check it out!
June 21, 2018
Readercon!
Hey, are you going to Readercon this year? What if I told you that the first night is free?
Yes, indeed! This lovely con runs from Thursday, July 12 through Sunday the 15th in Quincy, MA, and if you’re interested but unable to spend the whole weekend/registration fee, you can check it out for free on the evening of the 12th! You can even (gasp) come hear me read from my books!
I’ve been scheduled for a half-hour solo reading at 9pm on the free night, Thursday the 12th, and for two absolutely fascinating panels later in the con:
On Friday the 13th at 10am, I have Rethinking the Dangerous Victim
Panel Description:
“Many SF stories hinge on distress calls that turn out to be scams. In the real world, under 10% of felony reports are false; the number is even lower for false reports of general distress. Why do we return to the dangerous victim story—the story in which the person who claims to need help is not only lying but actively malicious—again and again? What exciting adventure stories can we tell about helping those who are genuinely in need?”
Then on Sunday the 15th at 1pm, there’s Our Bodies, Our Elves: Sexual Awakenings in Epic Fantasy
Description:
Starting in the later 20th century, the bildungsromans of epic fantasy began to include sexual awakenings. Some are raunchy, some are awkward, and almost all are self-directed; the wise elders of the genre are mysteriously silent on this crucial topic. When authors can imagine elves and dragons, why is it so hard to also imagine decent fantastical sex ed? How do today’s writers and readers approach this aspect of adolescent self-discovery stories?
These panels are going to be great, and so is the whole convention. We’ve been going to Readercon ever since our daughter was born, as our weekend off for child-free intellectual conversation. It’s a great, thoughtful convention full of great, thoughtful people, no costumes required (or even expected). Come check it out!
April 23, 2018
Impeachment won’t do what you want it to
It’s been a while since I wrote about politics here, both because my fiction writing rightly took precedent and because a lot of my political writing has migrated to Twitter. But I wanted to take a moment to shoot down some liberal happy-talk regarding impeachment.
In short, it won’t work.
To be clear, I’m not saying impeachment and removal from office are impossible, just that they are HIGHLY unlikely, because they rely on convincing an implausible number of GOP senators to vote for removal.
Let’s do some math.
Impeachment only requires a majority of House members, so let’s say the Dems take the House and can impeach the president. This triggers a “trial” in the Senate, which we hope will end in removal from office with a 2/3 vote. In case you’re wondering, that’s 67/100 senators.
How many Democrats are in the Senate right now? 49, if you count Sanders and King. We’ve got a long way to go.
But let’s say that the Democratic wave is a freaking tsunami and that EVERY SINGLE SENATE SEAT up for a vote in 2018 goes Dem. WY, UT, NE, TX, TN, NV, AZ all flip, as do both seats in Mississippi. Those are the only Republican seats up for grabs, and they’re only enough to bring the Democrats up to 58. But let’s say that McCain’s seat is up for a special, and also flips.
Do I have to explain how unlikely this all is? Good. So how many seats do the Dems net out of that massacre? Nine. The senate ends up 59 D/I, 41 R.
OH WAIT, THAT’S NOT ENOUGH DEMS TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
Now, some adorable optimists out there are shouting that after a wave that huge (both Senate seats in MISSISSIPPI, for crying out loud!), the Republicans are bound to surrender and throw Trump under the bus. The moderates will be running for the hills!!! To which I say, what moderates? McCain? Heller? Corker? Flake? They’re all gone already. There will literally be *two* Republican senators left who even have a passing claim to moderation, Collins and Murkowski, and even if they jump on the bandwagon, that STILL leaves the Dems 6 votes short.
Now, I’ll grant that Marco Rubio is a spineless dope, and that a tsunami as big as the one I described — where over 100 House seats and 9 Republican Senate seats switch sides — would scare him shitless. So let’s count him in. Six to go. Oh what the hell, I’ll give you Cassidy too. Four.
At this point, there’s basically nobody left. You can make Lindsay Graham a swing vote if you squint hard enough, but that’s basically squinting until your eyes are shut. But hey, you want to count him and Rand Paul? Whatever. Next you’ll be telling me that McConnell’s a moderate in disguise.
And you still need two more.
There’s basically no one left. If you think McConnell can’t hold the rest of them together and vote against the Will of the People (TM), you haven’t been watching American politics in a few decades.. Whether they fall short by two, or six, or ten, the Democrats fall short. Trump may get impeached, but he will not be removed from office.
To be clear, I’m not bringing this up to rain on anyone’s parade. I don’t even think impeachment in the House is a bad idea, necessarily, since it would at least force the Senate (and let’s call it a Democratic Senate for the sake of argument) to take up the trial investigation and lay everything bare. That’s good for democracy. At least, I hope so. On the other hand, there is political danger in trying something and failing, especially if you fail dramatically.
But the real reason I wish the impeachment happy-talk would go away isn’t that I think impeachment is bad per se, it’s that expecting this story to end in removal from office is setting yourself up to be crushed and demoralized right ahead of the 2020 election. Why the hell would you do that?
Democratic goals this year and next should be simple: take the House and Senate, and as many governorships and state legislatures as possible. Stop the GOP’s agenda in its tracks, stop Trump’s agenda in its tracks, end voter suppression and gerrymandering shenanigans to the best of your ability, and BUILD UP TO 2020. Don’t set yourself up for heartbreak.
February 26, 2018
Reviews are good. Even “bad” ones.
I have been completely blown away by the response to a recent $1.99 Bookbub promo for Silent Hall. If you are one of the many people who picked up my first book for just a couple of bucks, thank you! If I may request just one more favor, would you please consider leaving me a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads? Reviews really matter.
They matter because they make authors’ work more visible, and they help readers tell which books are worth the time and which might not be their bag. For every reader who leaves a review, there are dozens who have similar tastes and are looking to find their next great read. So please, do them a favor. Tell them what you loved about the books you read, what squicked you out, what disturbed you. It’s all appreciated. Whether you think my books are excellent, lousy, or just okay, voicing that opinion in the form of a review helps everybody in the system.
I want to be clear here: I love sales. I want sales. I love great reviews that help drive more sales. But I appreciate the negative ones too, and the mixed bags, because I want my books to reach the right audience. A well elucidated criticism isn’t a bad review, it’s a great way to make sure a book will reach only people who will appreciate it despite (or because of) its flaws.
When you say “hey this book was mostly enjoyable, but CW: there is the threat of harm to children, and also icky sex stuff,” that doesn’t cause me harm, and you know, it may save some readers from trauma. I’d rather miss those readers and the $0.47 in royalties than hurt them. My books do not have content warnings. I didn’t even think to suggest it before publication, and in any case it would be up to the publisher and not me to weigh whether CWs would be good for business and decide whether or not to include them. But you know what can help fill the gaps? Reviews!
I’ve had reviews that complained about the way my first book included menstruation. You know what, that’s not for everyone! If you’re a person who can’t handle reading an awkward scene where an awkward and isolated teenage boy learns about menstruation for the first time, that’s totally okay! I’d rather not put you through that scene if it’ll just bother you. That’s the kind of stuff we rely on our reviewers to bring to light.
So please, all it takes is a minute or two. If you love a book, write a review. If you hate a book, write a review. If your feelings about a book are mixed, write a review.
December 29, 2017
My Arisia Schedule
Arisia is coming up, and I have a fantastic schedule that I’m really excited about! Check it out!
Saturday January 13
9:00 AM Grand Ballroom CD Bad Prose Reading. N.S. Dolkart. An interactive reading of the hardboiled Bad Prose story “The Maltese Pelican” by Alias MacPenname (N.S. Dolkart). Laugh or correct the text, and your turn is over! PG-13
4:00 PM Burroughs Technology’s not a Cure: Disability in SFF. N.S. Dolkart (mod), LJ Cohen, Bekah Anderson, LB Lee, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Tikva. Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter reached almost all of its stretch goals, and completed funding. Defying Doomsday, an anthology of post-apocalyptic survival fiction that focuses on disabled characters was published in 2016. The conversation around disability in SFF is growing, but there are still many problems and problematic tropes in common use. Where do we, as a genre, need to go to create a better genre for disability representation?
8:30 PM Douglas SFF and the Feminine Elder. Lisa Batya Feld (mod), Greer Gilman, Andrea Hairston, N.S. Dolkart (I am super excited to be on a panel with these women. They’re freaking geniuses. I plan to do a lot more listening than talking). As our population ages and more people are living longer lives of greater vigor, older folks remain underrepresented as protagonists in SFF. Older women, in particular, rarely appear even as supporting characters, and often only appear in trope-laden roles we’ve all seen before. What stories break this mold? What stories are there yet to be told for older women in SFF? How do the fem-of-center relate to technologies of life extension or body replacement?
Sunday January 14
8:30 PM Faneuil Beyond Metaphor: Explicit Representation in SFF. N.S. Dolkart (mod), Sabrina Vourvoulias, Sarah Lynn Weintraub, Keffy R.M. Kehrli, Steve Berman. There are many SFF works that talk around an issue, rather than facing it head-on. What works are there that directly talk about race, sexuality, gender identity, disability; things that have been addressed in the past mostly as metaphor? Are there any ways we are moving away from only being able to imagine ourselves in our protagonists in vague and subtle hints? What still has to happen before explicit representation works properly for everyone?
Monday January 15
11:30 AM Hale Fantasy Reading. N.S. Dolkart, Stephen R Wilk. Authors will be reading their own original works about dragons, mysticism, and epic fantasy. (I will be reading a passage from the forthcoming third book of the Godserfs series, A Breach in the Heavens)
September 17, 2017
Writing Update
So, what has the great N.S. Dolkart been up to recently? Working on the next book?
In short, yes, though progress has been very slow. I recently had the unenviable task of writing to my editor to request that we delay publication of Godserfs book three until October 2018 (from an original pub date in August 2018) because I simply haven’t been writing quickly enough. My excuses are valid: new job (salaried, sucking up extra hours until I get used to the routine), house hunt (to move closer to said job), kids who need me to not disappear from their lives…anyhoo, my new first-draft deadline of April 1st is going to be much more attainable than February 1st.
So what does this mean? If you enjoyed AMONG THE FALLEN and are already awaiting the climactic Book Three, you can mark your calendars for October of next year. While you’re waiting, perhaps I can convince you to write a review.
July 7, 2017
My Readercon Schedule
Next weekend is Readercon, for which I am incredibly excited. How could I not be? Check out the amazing panels I’m on!
Friday July 14
12:00 PM 6 Back from the Dead. Judith Berman, John Crowley, N.S. Dolkart, Nicholas Kaufmann, Sioban Krzywicki (leader). There are many characters in SF/F who die in what appears to be a permanent fashion, only to be brought back from death. Examples, left intentionally vague to avoid spoilers, appear in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, Daniel José Older’s Bone Street Rumba books, and as far back as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. How do the characters interact with resurrection (their own or someone else’s) and in some cases even prepare for it? When do readers feel like this works and is believable and satisfying, and when does it feel like a cheap trick or a cop-out? What is it like to read these stories while grieving, or keenly aware of one’s own mortality?
7:00 PM 6 Race and Historical Accuracy in Cod-Medieval Fantasy Fiction. S.A. Chakraborty, Phenderson Clark, N.S. Dolkart, Tom Greene, Catherynne M. Valente. Too often, we’ve heard the excuse of “historical accuracy” used to explain the lack of PoC in historical fiction. Yet their presence is profoundly felt throughout European history, including in the medieval era so often used or modified as a fantasy setting: Arabic numbers have been used in Western societies for centuries, philosopher Ibn Rushd preserved and notated the works of Aristotle, the Silk Road brought traders and diplomats from all over Asia, and Moors in Spain were credited with promoting astronomy, medicine, and literacy. This panel will discuss how to populate cod-medieval fantasy novels with characters of color who have dimension, depth, and humanity, while avoiding stereotypes of swarthy villains and uncouth sidekicks.
Saturday July 15
2:00 PM C Lines of Consent in Fiction. Samuel R. Delany, N.S. Dolkart, Lila Garrott, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Josh Jasper. In science fiction and fantasy, consent is often handled in fuzzy, imprecise ways. Obvious scenarios of non-consent, such as the enslaved house elves in the Harry Potter books, are easily identified as problematic, but less is said about magical destiny that compels an ordinary person to become a hero; inherited magic, rank, or family feuds that empower or endanger a character without their consent; soul mates, who are forced to love and be attracted to each other; werewolves compelled to change shape under the full moon; and other strictures that are so common we’ve come to take them for granted. This panel will discuss work that either explicitly deals with consent or appears oblivious to its relevance, and will explore the writer’s responsibility when placing characters in a scenario (or plot) that hinges on questionable consent or non-consent. Content note: this panel may explicitly discuss violations of consent and their consequences. For the purposes of this panel, trigger warnings and content notes are assumed to be valuable tools that assist the reader.
Sunday July 16
12:30 PM A Reading: N.S. Dolkart. N.S. Dolkart. N.S. Dolkart will conduct an interactive Bad Prose reading of his dreadfully-written story, “The Maltese Pelican.”
May 31, 2017
Among the Fallen Giveaway
Want a free signed copy of Among the Fallen? Guess what! There’s a giveaway going on RIGHT NOW on Goodreads! Enter below for your chance to win a book! (It’s a very good book. I wrote it just for you.)
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Among the Fallen
by N.S. Dolkart
Giveaway ends June 07, 2017.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
May 26, 2017
Judaism and the Godserfs Series
I know I’ve disappeared recently into a black hole of endless work and other stressful things (house hunting, anyone?), but I absolutely have to tell you about these three posts of mine that have come out this month, all discussing aspects of my series’ relationship with Judaism.
The first is over at the Jewish Book Council, where I discuss three biblical passages that particularly influenced my writing. They’re really fascinating passages in their own right, and you should definitely check it out.
The second post at the JBC is even dearer to my heart, a response to a 2010 essay in which Michael Weingrad argued that Judaism was inherently better suited to science fiction than to fantasy. In this response I discuss the thing that I feel to be most Jewish about my series: the complete lack of dualism.
Lastly, I’ve got a lovely post in ReformJudaism.org about how I ended up writing such Jewish stuff anyhow, when I’d always resisted it in college. This one also reveals the idea at the core of Among the Fallen, so only read it if you don’t mind some spoilers!
