Brenda Cooper's Blog, page 5

Post #3: A Conversation with “The Road”

This is the third entry in a set of linked posts about my novel POST, which will be out soon from eSpecBooks.  Note – if you get in on the Kickstarter, that will help out greatly.

Writers often write in conversation with other writers. That’s natural – we read, and what we read moves us, and we write about what moves us.  When I read “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, I found myself thoroughly depressed. Sure, I was amazed by his wordsmithing – he’s a skilled and evocative writer. I would love to be that good with line by line writing. But the overall story left me deeply hopeless.

“Post” is my response to “The Road.”  It is set in a time when climate change has had an impact, when a society that broke pretty far down is on it’s way back to something better, but when success it remains uncertain. POST is a friendship book, and a book about putting hope inside of a hard world.  And like “The Road,” much of it is about a journey.  About half of it anyway — another part of the conversation is that as a reader, I want to eventually get somewhere.

POST is about a young woman – Sage – who leaves a very safe and antiseptic place (and don’t we all, as we grow up?) and sets out to find an airplane, which to her, is a symbol of hope.  She gathers friends and allies, has adventures, is confused about love and sexuality, gets her first kiss, and sees a great tragedy.  She lives, since I’d like to write more books about her.  It’s YA, but if you like The Silver Ship and the Sea (out again next year!) you’ll like this – there are mature themes, real dangers, but nothing your 10-year-old couldn’t read, or that you might not enjoy.  This of it as 9 to 90 writing.

I hope you’ll consider picking it up via the Kickstarter, and that you’ll enjoy it if you do.  It was fun to write.

A few more posts about POST are likely to show up…..

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Post #2: A novel that started with zen gardens

This is tale #2 related to Post, which is being Kickstarted (along with The Sister Paradox, by Jack Campbell) by eSpec Books.  For those following along at home, just as I’m getting ready to publish this, the Kisktarter is two days in, and it’s reached $1135 dollars, or about a third of what it needs to fund. Over a month left. The last post was me talking about the Cynthia Radthorne cover, and now I’m going back to the very beginning.  So here is the origination story for POST…

I was just a week away from a short story writing workshop on the Oregon Coast. There, I planned to see  Sheila Williams (the editor for Asimov’s Science Fiction) and get pushed hard by workshop leaders Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith.  I count Kris as one of the best craft teachers out there, and even though I was selling work regularly by then, I wanted to do an impressive job going into the workshop. Kris had given exercises in the past about specificity (The black mutt with the crooked tail and the broken tooth is better than the black dog).

The night this story started, I was in San Diego at one of the hotels vaguely near the convention center. I wandered up the street to a bookstore, which seemed like a good place for  writer to go think. I decided to find a book on a topic I knew little about. I browsed. I browsed some more. Finally, I picked up a book about zen gardens. I’d always enjoyed them, but I had no idea how they were created. It was a little green how-to manual, the kind you might find a Home Depot or any other garden store. How to Plant from Seed, How to Raise Goats.  But this one was Creating Japanese Gardens. This cover is actually the book that started it all.

I went back to the hotel room and I read about zen gardens. Twice.

Then I created a zen garden on the page. I gave it a character – an old man who likes gardening naked (not in a creepy way – in a 1960’s natural human way). Then I built a botanical garden around the zen garden. I gave it a character – a young woman who wanted OUT of the garden. I made her someone who noticed details, so that I had a plausible way to describe the zen garden.

I finished the first draft of a short story in about six hours over two days. It was quite specific.

The story generated a heated discussion in the workshop. Kris wanted more. She said it was the first chapter of a novel. Sheila liked it. She eventually bought it, and came out in Asimov’s as “In Their Garden.” David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer included it in their “Year’s Best 15” anthology. Clearly, it succeeded.

But I always remembered what Kris said, and at some level, it must have rung true. After all, here is a full-blown novel that grew out of a little story about Japanese gardens – the one written as specifically as possible.

Watch this space for three or four more stories about POST across the next few weeks. If you have a question, feel free to pose it in comments.

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POST #1. POST! Really…my novel Post is now on Kickstarter!

I’m pleased to announce that eSpec Books is publishing my novel POST via Kickstarter. I wrote POST some time (pre-MFA) and I’m pleased to have it see a bright, shiny daylight right alongside a Jack Campbell novel.  I’ll talk about it here every few days to tell the story of how the book started, how it got picked up by eSpec, and how some of my friends are helping me out (go friends!). This little book has accumulated a few good stories already on its way out onto the world.

I’ll start with the story of the cover.  That’s beginning with one of the last things that happened, but covers are fun to talk about and so are friends….

I have enjoyed my friend Cynthia Radthorne‘s art for some time.  I’ve wanted to write a robot anthology to a piece of her art for years.  Maybe someday I’ll have that dream come true, and edit an anthology around Cynthia’s SF piece “A girl can dream.”  But none of my books have seemed like a good match for her art, until now.  So I’m really pleased to show off Cynthia’s original cover for POST.

I love how the piece turned out since it shows off the troubled world, and the hope that goes with it, and an airplane (which is central to the story).  The girls, by the way, are named Sage and Monday.

If you hurry up, Post is available in ebook for only $5 as an early backer bonus. More as the month winds on….

 

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A Review of Four and Half Year’s Worth of Work

A review of my most recent four book series (in two duologies) came out yesterday.  Duology 1 is The Creative Fire and The Diamond Deep, and Duology 2 is Edge of Dark and Spear of Light. All of them came out from Pyr. The second two books came out because after I finished the first story, I wanted to explore the world more deeply (Worldbuilding is one main reason I write SF instead of contemporary fiction). So they are two complete and loosely linked stories in one world.

First a word on reviews in general:

As an author, I usually don’t talk a lot about reviews, except maybe to point people to good reviews in hopes it will encourage them to try my work. Good reviews make me happy.  Bad reviews make me sad, but if they’re thoughtful enough I can learn something about the reader experience from them.  I don’t argue with reviewers. I’ve seen writers do that, and I’ve never seen that turn out well.

So why do I want to talk about this one?

For the first time, I’ve had what feels like a review of a body of work, rather a point in time in my career, and:

That feels pretty special (there are moments when you realize you’ve taken a step in a writing career. Sometimes someone else notices first.  I finished that work under deadline and moved on, still slammed with deadlines, and this review reminds me to stop for a minute and take a breath).
Someone was interested enough in this work to really think about it. This is a fast paced, crazed world. So that’s a real compliment.
The reviewer (Paul Weimer), gets the series. He did review the first three books individually.

Here’s a link to the review, which is over at Skiffy and Fanty.

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Reading Recommendation: Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life

E. O. Wilson’s Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life is one of the best books I’ve read on the future of Earth.

He states the problem clearly….after beginning with an apt description of what we (mankind) are like and then stating that we have little time to spend on the wrong trajectory, he says:

“Meanwhile, we thrash about, appallingly led, with no particular goal in mind than economic growth, unfettered consumption, good health, and personal happiness. The impact on the rest of the biosphere is everywhere negative, the environment becoming unstable and less pleasant, our long-term future less certain.”

Yet even though Wilson pulls no punches throughout the book (which is frightening on many levels), he is hopeful. He sets a huge goal. He means exactly what is in the title. Set aside half of Earth (landmass) for biodiversity. Leave it alone. Let it recover and grow. This is the moonshot solution for biodiversity.

It’s not impossible.

Unlike many authors with roots in the environmental world, Wilson embraces technology and progress. He sees innovation as enhancing our ability to save the world. In short, in the future, we will know more about the other beings inhabiting the biosphere beside us, we will be able to monitor and understand them better, and we will have tools to build an economy that is not based heavily on the destruction of natural resources. He clearly understands the connected future we are moving into and the positives and challenges of the increasing rate of change. In chapter 16, he writes:

“The collective human mind, hyperconnected and digitized, will flow through the entirely of the life we have inherited far more quickly than was possible before. We will then understand the full meaning of extinction, and we will come to regret deeply every species humanity will have carelessly thrown away.”

In many ways, this is a futurist’s book about the ongoing loss of biodiversity. That doesn’t mean we need to (or can!) wait for the future before we act. Rather, we must do more of the conservation we are already doing. Much more.

We also need to spend a lot more time and resources on practical field science – I did not for example, realize how many species we haven’t even discovered yet (there is a great case made for this in the book).  I felt like I learned something, which is a reader cookie for me if I’m going to spend hours on a science book.  Note that it pairs well with The Sixth Extinction, which I read and recommended already, but which I intend to re-read this month.

I highly recommend that everyone read Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. It is readable – Wilson wrote this book for all of us to understand. His style is accessible and conversational.

Even if you think you understand the problem, and the solutions, the book should be owned by us all for the beautiful descriptions of the best places in the world that fill the center of book, in chapter 15. It reads like poetry. I listened to parts of it three times (chapter 15 and the last few chapters).  Yes, it’s a research book for my current novel, and I’m getting to use it as part of my MFA, but more importantly, it’s a very good book.

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Worldcon Schedule – Kansas City!

I’m really excited about this programming.  It’s all great.  Please note that my reading is early in the convention.  But hey, it’s right after one of may favorite topics, Environmental Speculative Fiction. So drop by for the panel and stay for the reading.  I also get to moderate some of my favorite writers…..

The Re-emergence of Environmental Speculative Fiction

Thursday 18:00 – 19:00, 2503A (Kansas City Convention Center)

This used to be a booming field but has only recently re-emerged. Why is this and how do today’s tropes differ from the ecological dystopias of the 1970s?

Mr. Peadar O Guilin (M), Brenda Cooper, Alyx Dellamonica

Reading: Brenda Cooper 

Thursday 19:00 – 19:30, 2202 (Readings) (Kansas City Convention Center)

Brenda Cooper

Autographing: Neil Clarke, Brenda Cooper, Rebecca Moesta, Martin Shoemaker, Rosemary Claire Smith

Friday 10:00 – 11:00, Autographing Space (Kansas City Convention Center)

Rebecca Moesta, Neil Clarke, Brenda Cooper, Martin L. Shoemaker, Ms Rosemary Claire Smith

Humans and Robots

Friday 13:00 – 14:00, 2204 (Kansas City Convention Center)

With advances in artificial Intelligence and human control of robots, will Asimov’s farmous laws be needed. How might programming the laws of robotics be approached? How does this relate to fuzzy sets and chaos theory?

Brenda Cooper (M), Walt Boyes, G. David Nordley, Jerry Pournelle, Mr Kevin Roche

Generation Starships

Friday 18:00 – 19:00, 2502B (Kansas City Convention Center)

What would life be like for those living on a Generation Spaceship? From water storage and greenhouses to dealing with the reprecussions of being always indoors, panellists will discuss the scientific, sociological and psychological aspects of building and living on a Generation Spaceship.

Gregory Benford, Ms Pat Cadigan, Jerry Pournelle, Brenda Cooper (M), Mark W. Tiedemann

The Future of the City

Saturday 13:00 – 14:00, 2209 (Kansas City Convention Center)

As part of “The Future of” series we look at Cities. We consider what makes a city, whether it is a place of 350,000 people (Utrecht, the Netherlands), somewhere with a cathedral (Chichester, UK – population 27,000), or something else entirely. Over the centuries and throughout the world, cities have been defined and understood very differently, so what changes do we expect to come in the next decades or centuries?

Gary Ehrlich, Alex Jablokow (M), Luke Peterson, Renée Sieber, Brenda Cooper

Space Technology Spinoffs

Saturday 16:00 – 17:00, 2210 (Kansas City Convention Center)

There have been some 2,000 technological products, inventions and ideas trasferred from NASA missions to commercial products and services. Of these, many have made life on Earth better in the fields of health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, energy and environment, information technology, and industrial productivity. Panelists discuss their favorite examples of space technology spinoffs.

Mrs. Laurel Anne Hill, Les Johnson, Janet Freeman-Daily (M), Joy Ward, Brenda Cooper

Kaffeeklatsch: Brenda Cooper, Larry Niven, Tui Sutherland

Sunday 11:00 – 12:00, 2211 (KKs) (Kansas City Convention Center)

Larry Niven, Tui Sutherland, Brenda Cooper

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Reading Recommendation: Arabella of Mars, by David Levine

You really need to pick up Arabella of Mars, by David Levine.  This is a great time to do it.  It’s a total escape from right now, right here, and a grand one at that!  It’s both surprising and familiar, and beautifully written. If you loved Fran Wilde’s Updraft you’ll love this.  Use it to fill in the moments between now and the time Fran’s Cloudbound comes out, which can fill in the time until David’s next book comes out….

More importantly, use it to give you a few moments of happiness while you settle in with a great heroine in a world you want to be part of. At least I wanted to be part of it.  David can just write me right into the next book!

Just in case a great escape and having a few happy hours isn’t enough, you can do good as well.  This is David’s debut novel (but don’t let that stop you — if you don’t know him, he’s a hugo-winning short story writer and he knows how to tell a tale).  Not only is it his debut novel, but right now  – as its coming out – he’s struggling with family health issues that really matter. So you can have a grand adventure, spend a few happy hours, and do a good deed if you buy a copy.

I promise you won’t regret it.

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Edge of Dark a finalist for the Endeavour award!

I’m pleased that Edge of Dark is a finalist for the Endeavour Award.

The winner will be announced at Orycon on Friday, November 18.

Here’s a list of all the finalists:

Edge of Dark by Brenda Cooper, Pyr Books;

Irona 700 by Dave Duncan, Open Road Integrated Media;

The Price of Valor by Django Wexler, Roc Books;

Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman, Saga Press; and

Tracker by C.J. Cherryh, Daw Books

This year’s judges are: Gordon Van Gelder, Jack McDevitt, and Michaela Roessner.

Good luck to all of us!

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Release Week Round-Up

I’m four days into the release of Spear of Light, which means I’m a pleased and exhausted author.  Here’s a round of some of what happened: three reviews, one reading (three to come), three giveaways, a preview, guest blog post and an interview. Thanks so much to everyone at Pyr, and to all of the bloggers and interviewers and reviewers and friends who came to readings and all of that. Thanks to everyone who tweeted, posted, cross-posted, and commented.  It’s an ecosystem.  Everyone matters.

Previews:

You can read a bit of Spear of Light over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist.

Reviews:

My Life My Books My Escape reviewed it first.  Love the blog title by the way – My favorite escape has always been reading. Of course, now writing is also a great escape from time to time. There is a giveaway of Spear of Light. 

The Exploding Spaceship reviewed Spear of Light.  Bonus review of Adam Rakunas’s Like a Boss – he and I are touring together.  Also a nice review of Infomancy, by Malka Alder.

Bibliosanctum also reviewed Spear of Light.  There is a giveaway of the duology!

Night Owl Science Fiction also has a review.

Thanks SO MUCH to all reviewers — the formal ones like this and every review on Goodreads and Amazon and anywhere else. They matter so much to us authors.  There’s really no words for the influence of each and every review and rating in our current society.

Other Giveaways:

If you join my mailing list, you’ll have chance to win book one – Edge of Dark. If you already have that book, I’ll substitute.  Most important, I’m really trying to build a nice mailing list to keep people informed (and I promise not to spam!). Help me out?

Other Media:

Guest Post, “Stories of Your Future” at Fantasy Cafe

Interview at SFF World

Mention at io9

Readings so far:

I got read with Madeline Ashby and Adam Rakunas at the University Bookstore. My favorite record of the event is Liz Argall’s picture-posting.

Readings still to come:

Bike-ride reading with Adam Rakunas from Magnussen Park to Log Boom park and back.  Easy fun largely flat ride all on trails, with readings, bathrooms, and a rest at the turn-around point. 13 miles round trip. Tomorrow at noon – start at Magnussen lot W6 (go in through the main entrance and go straight). Look for Adam on the coolest group-ride cargo bike ever.

Reading in Portland (Beaverton Powell’s) with Adam Rakunas. Tuesday the 14th.

Reading in San Diego — April 23rd. Mysterious Galaxy.

Because sometimes all good things happen at once:

Two other exciting things happened in the same week as the Spear of Light release (while nothing else came out for months before!). The bounty of spring I guess:

I have a story in Neil Clarke’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year.  This is very cool, since I think Neil is one of our best SF short fiction editors out there.  I was really pleased when he picked “Iron Pegasus,” which first came out in Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s excellent anthology, Mission Tomorrow.

I have an essay in Shannon Page’s The Usual Path to Publication: 27 Stories about 27 Ways In.

 

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Win Free Books!

It’s one week before Spear of Light shows up in bookstores.  There are now three ways I know of to win books….

Head on over to My Life My Books My Escape (how cool is that name?) for a chance to win a free copy of Spear of Light.  They’ve also got one of the first reviews of the book posted so far.  They’re calling this work a “Must Read Sci-fi Series!”

There’s even more chances to win a copy of Spear of Light  at Goodreads!  Can you help me get to more than 500 entries!

Remember that you can read the first chapter of Spear of Light for free at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist.

And if you haven’t started the now-complete two-book series yet, you can win a copy of Edge of Dark by joining my mailing list (or simply emailing me for an entry — see the post for details!).

Thanks so much, and Good Luck!

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