Lois McMaster Bujold's Blog, page 26
July 16, 2019
Bujold reading-order guide updated
I just tried to add this link to my author profile, only to discover that for unknown reasons it won't let me put links there. Since I have three links there already, this is very mysterious, but I suppose spammers and scammers have been abusing such functions. (This is why we can't have nice things on the internet, I guess.) (Or else Goodreads is just being weird. Such as when they capped the number of photos one could store on-site to something about one-tenth the number of my book covers, sigh.) Anyway, temporarily routing around...
An up-to-date guide to reading order of my works is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Now including, in hope, "The Orphans of Raspay" in its proper slot, which is chimerical today but which I trust will be made true by the end of this week.
Ta, L.
An up-to-date guide to reading order of my works is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Now including, in hope, "The Orphans of Raspay" in its proper slot, which is chimerical today but which I trust will be made true by the end of this week.
Ta, L.
July 10, 2019
The Spirit Ring new on Audible
Ah, I see the new recording of The Spirit Ring is set to release from Audible next Tuesday, July 16th.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Spirit-Rin...
No, I have no idea why it is an Audible exclusive. No, I don't have any say in how or where its licensee chooses to market it. But there you go.
Interesting cover, better than many. I'm not sure why cover art should matter to an audio release, but apparently it does, so, good.
Ta, L.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Spirit-Rin...
No, I have no idea why it is an Audible exclusive. No, I don't have any say in how or where its licensee chooses to market it. But there you go.
Interesting cover, better than many. I'm not sure why cover art should matter to an audio release, but apparently it does, so, good.
Ta, L.
July 7, 2019
The Orphans of Raspay cover sneak peek
Or, the novella formerly known as Penric 7. Those four words took two weeks to devise, a very slow production rate, but they had to be the right words.
Cover art and design, again, by Ron Miller.
Vendor page copy will be, roughly:
When the ship in which they are traveling is captured by Carpagamon island raiders, Temple sorcerer Penric and his resident demon Desdemona find their life complicated by two young orphans, Lencia and Seuka Corva, far from home and searching for their missing father. Pen and Des will need all their combined talents of mind and magic to unravel the mysteries of the sisters and escape from the pirate stronghold.
This novella follows about a year after the events of “The Prisoner of Limnos”.
E-publication before the end of the month, I'm pretty sure; this week or next, maybe. I still have some last polishing and fretting to do on the text file, and then there is the vexing question of a map.
Later on, I hope to do an illustrated post about the development of the cover art.
Ron's website: http://www.black-cat-studios.com/
Ta, L.
Cover art and design, again, by Ron Miller.
Vendor page copy will be, roughly:
When the ship in which they are traveling is captured by Carpagamon island raiders, Temple sorcerer Penric and his resident demon Desdemona find their life complicated by two young orphans, Lencia and Seuka Corva, far from home and searching for their missing father. Pen and Des will need all their combined talents of mind and magic to unravel the mysteries of the sisters and escape from the pirate stronghold.
This novella follows about a year after the events of “The Prisoner of Limnos”.
E-publication before the end of the month, I'm pretty sure; this week or next, maybe. I still have some last polishing and fretting to do on the text file, and then there is the vexing question of a map.
Later on, I hope to do an illustrated post about the development of the cover art.
Ron's website: http://www.black-cat-studios.com/
Ta, L.
July 1, 2019
Curse of Chalion ebook on sale for $.99
Huh. Looks like HarperCollins has The Curse of Chalion e-edition on sale for 99 cents on all its vendors. I have no idea when the sale started or how long it will last, but for bargain hunters, there ya go.
Ta, L.
Ta, L.
June 28, 2019
SubPress news on Flowers of Vashnoi
An interesting tidbit from Subterranean Press:
https://subterraneanpress.com/news/lo...
"We can now say with certainty that we will not have copies of the trade hardcover of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Flowers of Vashnoi after the initial shipping wave. So far, we've received a deluge of distributor and large online retailer orders for this novella, so many that they account for 138% of the print run!"
Note that this does NOT mean the book will be unavailable, quite the reverse. You just won't be able to order it direct from SubPress after the shipping date, as all the copies will be out sloshing around in the distribution system and at booksellers.
Such as Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore and Dreamhaven Books & Comics here in Minneapolis, who will both have copies of the trade edition in-store and mail order, signed (in due course, when they catch up with me.)
Explanatory note: SubPress offers two versions of the novella, a trade, i.e., normal (if very nice) hardcover for $25 in a limited print run, and an already-signed fancy leather-bound, in an even more limited printing at a higher price of $45. SubPress, as near as I can tell, still has copies of the leather-bound available in-house.
Publication late July, so, real soon now. (Where is this year going...?)
Ta, L.
https://subterraneanpress.com/news/lo...
"We can now say with certainty that we will not have copies of the trade hardcover of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Flowers of Vashnoi after the initial shipping wave. So far, we've received a deluge of distributor and large online retailer orders for this novella, so many that they account for 138% of the print run!"
Note that this does NOT mean the book will be unavailable, quite the reverse. You just won't be able to order it direct from SubPress after the shipping date, as all the copies will be out sloshing around in the distribution system and at booksellers.
Such as Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore and Dreamhaven Books & Comics here in Minneapolis, who will both have copies of the trade edition in-store and mail order, signed (in due course, when they catch up with me.)
Explanatory note: SubPress offers two versions of the novella, a trade, i.e., normal (if very nice) hardcover for $25 in a limited print run, and an already-signed fancy leather-bound, in an even more limited printing at a higher price of $45. SubPress, as near as I can tell, still has copies of the leather-bound available in-house.
Publication late July, so, real soon now. (Where is this year going...?)
Ta, L.
June 26, 2019
Penric 7
...not to be confused with the Magnificent.
I am pleased to report that I have finished the first draft a new Penric & Desdemona novella. I have a potential title, but I'm holding the door on that ajar for a trifle longer in case some better notion or word-string turns up at the last.
Present draft sits at about 43,000 words, on the longer end of the wide range of things called "novellas". This somewhat artificial category means little more than "longer than a short story, shorter than a novel", but is officially defined by people who need exactitude as a story between 17,500 and 40k - 45k words. From the reader's more practical point of view, that translates to something like a quarter to half the length of a novel, unless the novel being envisioned is a door-stopper.
Anyway, the tale takes place a bit less than a year after the events of "The Prisoner of Limnos", and trends more to the action-adventure side than mystery or romance, this outing. The internal-chronological and the publication order happen to match, though I don't guarantee that will always be the case in future stories, if any.
Still to go are the final edit (a maddening phase) and devising a cover and vendor-page copy and such-like tasks. No, I don't have a projected pub date, but I'm hoping no more than a month, maybe. We don't put up pre-order pages for these original e-works; whenever it goes up, at the usual suspects, it may be bought.
Ta, L.
I am pleased to report that I have finished the first draft a new Penric & Desdemona novella. I have a potential title, but I'm holding the door on that ajar for a trifle longer in case some better notion or word-string turns up at the last.
Present draft sits at about 43,000 words, on the longer end of the wide range of things called "novellas". This somewhat artificial category means little more than "longer than a short story, shorter than a novel", but is officially defined by people who need exactitude as a story between 17,500 and 40k - 45k words. From the reader's more practical point of view, that translates to something like a quarter to half the length of a novel, unless the novel being envisioned is a door-stopper.
Anyway, the tale takes place a bit less than a year after the events of "The Prisoner of Limnos", and trends more to the action-adventure side than mystery or romance, this outing. The internal-chronological and the publication order happen to match, though I don't guarantee that will always be the case in future stories, if any.
Still to go are the final edit (a maddening phase) and devising a cover and vendor-page copy and such-like tasks. No, I don't have a projected pub date, but I'm hoping no more than a month, maybe. We don't put up pre-order pages for these original e-works; whenever it goes up, at the usual suspects, it may be bought.
Ta, L.
June 25, 2019
Knife Children releases in audio today
On Downpour, Audible, iTunes, and all the usual suspects.
https://www.downpour.com/knife-childr...
Ta, L.
Later: someone over on the Facebook mirror page, where I can read but not reply, asked if there was to be a paper edition. Yes, Subterranean Press will be doing one of their deluxe hardcovers, probably early next year. I've had a sneak peak at the cover art, and it's lovely. I am not, in general, in favor of trying to portray my characters' faces on covers, because so much can go wrong, but I think this artist really captured Barr and Lily.
(The rest of you won't get to see it till SubPress's vendor page for the title goes up, usually three or fours months before pub date; so, fall.)
Ta, L.
https://www.downpour.com/knife-childr...
Ta, L.
Later: someone over on the Facebook mirror page, where I can read but not reply, asked if there was to be a paper edition. Yes, Subterranean Press will be doing one of their deluxe hardcovers, probably early next year. I've had a sneak peak at the cover art, and it's lovely. I am not, in general, in favor of trying to portray my characters' faces on covers, because so much can go wrong, but I think this artist really captured Barr and Lily.
(The rest of you won't get to see it till SubPress's vendor page for the title goes up, usually three or fours months before pub date; so, fall.)
Ta, L.
June 12, 2019
Penric in Japan
Aha! This link surfaced this morning...
https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E9%AD%94%E8...
This is the first of the two 3-novella collections we sold to Tokyo Sogensha -- I didn't know it had already hit print and pixel. I will look forward to getting an author's copy, for a better look at that classy -- and accurate, glory be! -- cover art.
(Working titles for the two batches were Penric's Progress and Penric's Travels, but titles often change in translation, not always for the better. This one's OK, though.)
Ta, L.
Later: Someone below found a link to the cover -- I'll see if I can get it to come up.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E9%AD%94%E8...
This is the first of the two 3-novella collections we sold to Tokyo Sogensha -- I didn't know it had already hit print and pixel. I will look forward to getting an author's copy, for a better look at that classy -- and accurate, glory be! -- cover art.
(Working titles for the two batches were Penric's Progress and Penric's Travels, but titles often change in translation, not always for the better. This one's OK, though.)
Ta, L.
Later: Someone below found a link to the cover -- I'll see if I can get it to come up.
June 8, 2019
foreign e-editions
More of my foreign editions are starting to have e-versions these days -- you can see a bunch of them on my iTunes page, including the new Spanish editions.
https://books.apple.com/us/artist/loi...
My in-translation SF publishers have had their markets highly constrained in the past by geographic and language barriers. The first of these, it seems, has fallen. Good.
Ta, L.
https://books.apple.com/us/artist/loi...
My in-translation SF publishers have had their markets highly constrained in the past by geographic and language barriers. The first of these, it seems, has fallen. Good.
Ta, L.
June 7, 2019
GC review: Understanding the Quantum World
So…
It isn’t all anime all the time here at Chez Bujold, as I force reading breaks on my aging eyes. (A person should not be seeing double through one eye. That’s just wrong.) I change it up with the occasional Great Course, of which I have become a fan and connoisseur.
It’s been interesting to see their technical development over the years, from back in the 90s when all they basically did was stick a professor up behind a podium and let him geek out about his or her favorite subject for however-many half-hour lectures, to the 00s and into the 2010s, where they began to deploy more pictures and visual aids, to the most recent, which finally begin to access the full-on teaching potential of the visual medium. (You can date the period of any given set of lectures by the sets.) In the early days, one can sense, the company was mainly thinking of people accessing the lectures through audio means, and they still sell audio versions of much of their material. But for visual thinkers like myself, pictures (and models, thank you Prof. Ressler) are a lot more powerful and memorable.
Understanding the Quantum World is a truly superior presentation by a truly superior lecturer, Professor Erica W. Carlson, that brilliantly utilizes visual teaching. Step by step, she leads the viewer from the simple to the profound. A great deal of jargon from the world of quantum physics has been picked up and used in modern metaphor; if nothing else, these lectures will show you where all those terms actually come from and what they mean when they’re at home (and, probably, how a lot of people are using them wrong.)
She manages to almost completely substitute visual pictures for the math, which works among other reasons because so much would seem to depend on fundamentals of quantum geometries. I found myself constantly torn between thinking this was the weirdest stuff ever, and realizing it made so much sense. Or, like the particle and the wave, both at once.
I need to watch it, like, two or three more times, not because the presentation missed any steps, but just because binge-watching was likely not the best approach, though I wanted to see how the plot came out. Second time through I expect to get/retain a lot more. And I have it on DVD, so I can, hah.
Recommended for: everybody.
Ooh: on sale this week. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/cours...
Great Courses list prices are heart-stopping, but they have frequent deep-discount sales, and most public libraries have some of the courses for free. One can also frequently pick up used editions for less on Amazon, Half-Price Books, and so on. And now they have streaming, which I admit I haven’t sampled yet, go them.
Ta, L.
(Feel free to mention other favorite GCs & similar in the comments. Because not all TV is trying to win the race for the bottom.)
It isn’t all anime all the time here at Chez Bujold, as I force reading breaks on my aging eyes. (A person should not be seeing double through one eye. That’s just wrong.) I change it up with the occasional Great Course, of which I have become a fan and connoisseur.
It’s been interesting to see their technical development over the years, from back in the 90s when all they basically did was stick a professor up behind a podium and let him geek out about his or her favorite subject for however-many half-hour lectures, to the 00s and into the 2010s, where they began to deploy more pictures and visual aids, to the most recent, which finally begin to access the full-on teaching potential of the visual medium. (You can date the period of any given set of lectures by the sets.) In the early days, one can sense, the company was mainly thinking of people accessing the lectures through audio means, and they still sell audio versions of much of their material. But for visual thinkers like myself, pictures (and models, thank you Prof. Ressler) are a lot more powerful and memorable.
Understanding the Quantum World is a truly superior presentation by a truly superior lecturer, Professor Erica W. Carlson, that brilliantly utilizes visual teaching. Step by step, she leads the viewer from the simple to the profound. A great deal of jargon from the world of quantum physics has been picked up and used in modern metaphor; if nothing else, these lectures will show you where all those terms actually come from and what they mean when they’re at home (and, probably, how a lot of people are using them wrong.)
She manages to almost completely substitute visual pictures for the math, which works among other reasons because so much would seem to depend on fundamentals of quantum geometries. I found myself constantly torn between thinking this was the weirdest stuff ever, and realizing it made so much sense. Or, like the particle and the wave, both at once.
I need to watch it, like, two or three more times, not because the presentation missed any steps, but just because binge-watching was likely not the best approach, though I wanted to see how the plot came out. Second time through I expect to get/retain a lot more. And I have it on DVD, so I can, hah.
Recommended for: everybody.
Ooh: on sale this week. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/cours...
Great Courses list prices are heart-stopping, but they have frequent deep-discount sales, and most public libraries have some of the courses for free. One can also frequently pick up used editions for less on Amazon, Half-Price Books, and so on. And now they have streaming, which I admit I haven’t sampled yet, go them.
Ta, L.
(Feel free to mention other favorite GCs & similar in the comments. Because not all TV is trying to win the race for the bottom.)
